On 5/2/2016 10:39 PM, Arthur Cresswell wrote:

Yeah, but what is in the waste bin in a bathroom?
I find bottles of shampoo and tissues and q tips and hair nets and
cardboard hair coloring, etc.

All of which is recyclable.



Shampoo bottles, yes. So you want to recycle a snotty tissue? Icky Q
tips? That stuff should be incinerated after you wipe your body
secretions on it.

On 5/2/2016 10:51 PM, Arthur Cresswell wrote:

I'm curious what you pay.

We pay 33 dollars a month for the once-weekly trash pickup (which includes
two bins of blue, two bins of green and one bin of brown).

We pay 13 cents to 50 cents a kilowatt hour to pump water (depends on the
monthly amounts) and we don't pay sewage since we have septic.



We pay by the bag for trash. Large bag is $2, small bag is $1
Recyclables are picked up free. There is a fee schedule for things like
furniture too, but all seem reasonable.

I take my trash to the dumpster at work, but if I had to pay it would
work out to about $12 a month.

In case some old lady here want to complain, we pay a fixed fee for
weekly pickup of the dumpster so my trash add nothing to the cost. I'm
not stealing. I've also given permission to a couple of others to use
it too.

On Tue, 03 May 2016 05:46:37 -0400, Ed Pawlowski wrote:

On Tue, 3 May 2016 02:52:49 -0000 (UTC), Arthur Cresswell
wrote:

Stormin Mormon wrote on Mon, 02 May 2016 21:12:38 -0400:

One auto repair garage near me (well, thinking some more, can think of a
second one) burns waste motor oil for heat in the winter. I get my oil
changes there. On the rare moments I have waste oil, I do bring it there
when the jug is full.

Really. They burn waste motor oil?
I would think that it's a carcinogen.
WHo knows what is dissolved in the waste motor oil?

Lots' of petroleum by products I would think.
Doesn't seem to me to be a good thing to burn, but, I guess if the heat
is high enough, everything is incinerated.


Our town heats the garage with waste oil. One of the biggest users of
waste oil is Safety Kleen. They charge you to take it away and burn
it as fuel in a plant that makes concrete in large kilns.

Remember a few years back the big deal with PCBs in electric
transformers? It is a carcinogen but to get rid of it safely it is
burned.
Safety Kleen in Breslau Ontario re-refines used oil, producing "new"
engine oil.

Burning PCBs is only possible at very high temperatures - like the
temperatures Lime kilns burn at.

trader_4 wrote:
....
And typically you need to use hot water and even soap to get
it clean. Mayonnaise is one of the worst. If it's bad enough,
I'll just toss it in with the garbage instead of wasting time
and energy to clean it. You have to wonder about the economics
and environmental impact of having to clean those hard to clean
things. I know people who clean even a can or jar until it's
spotless. If you go down to the township facility where they
accept stuff you bring in, they have a giant dumpster for the
recyclables and OMG, what a mess. It's obvious a lot of people
aren't cleaning up anything. But even when I tell people what
it looks like there, they still want to run the hot water to
make every bottle and can shiny.

using hot water to clean recycling containers is a
waste of energy. and as water gets tougher for some
areas to come by they will also usually be much better
served by a larger facility doing the cleaning in bulk.

i rinse stuff out with cold water and some soap if
needed to break up the fats.

in a perfect world all containers would be recycled
and all manufactured products would get recycled.
there's only so much metal/petrochemicals to go around
and eventually they'll be gone. we'll probably be
mining old dumps at some point.


songbird

Ed Pawlowski wrote:
....
Shampoo bottles, yes. So you want to recycle a snotty tissue? Icky Q
tips? That stuff should be incinerated after you wipe your body
secretions on it.

if the q-tip is cotton on paper stem it's
digestible by worms or composting.


songbird

On Tuesday, May 3, 2016 at 7:26:52 AM UTC-5, trader_4 wrote:
On Tuesday, May 3, 2016 at 7:28:48 AM UTC-4, Steve Stone wrote:
Every time you rinse out a food container that residue is going into
your septic or sewer system, which in my case with a septic system needs
to be pumped out and disposed of in a sanitary manner every few years.
In my case that is about $250 per honey wagon load.

And typically you need to use hot water and even soap to get
it clean. Mayonnaise is one of the worst. If it's bad enough,
I'll just toss it in with the garbage instead of wasting time
and energy to clean it. You have to wonder about the economics
and environmental impact of having to clean those hard to clean
things. I know people who clean even a can or jar until it's
spotless. If you go down to the township facility where they
accept stuff you bring in, they have a giant dumpster for the
recyclables and OMG, what a mess. It's obvious a lot of people
aren't cleaning up anything. But even when I tell people what
it looks like there, they still want to run the hot water to
make every bottle and can shiny.

At home, I always rinsed out any can or jar with hot water and a drop of soap before tossing it into the kitchen trashcan. This starved the roaches or made the container suitable for storing nuts and bolts. A crumb will feed a roach family for a month so if there's no food, there's nothing to attract the creepy little *******s. It also decreases the need for insecticide or roach traps. I don't like to find roaches or ants all over the kitchen. ^_^

[8~{} Uncle Roach Monster

On Monday, May 2, 2016 at 8:13:01 PM UTC-4, Mike Duffy wrote:
On Mon, 2 May 2016 18:32:36 -0500, RonNNN wrote:

[...] maggots and roaches and stuff

Is there a problem with the lid on your gargabe container?

I can't speak for Mike Duffy, of course, but...

Flies seem to find a way in regardless. Our current container
is provided by the trash hauler (we have no choice; it's designed
to be picked up by the mechanical arm on the truck), and the lid
doesn't close very tightly. When we bought our own garbage cans,
flies still managed to get in to lay their eggs.

Luckily, it's only a problem in the summer here. Cold weather
kills the little devils.

Cindy Hamilton

On Tuesday, May 3, 2016 at 8:26:52 AM UTC-4, trader_4 wrote:
On Tuesday, May 3, 2016 at 7:28:48 AM UTC-4, Steve Stone wrote:
Every time you rinse out a food container that residue is going into
your septic or sewer system, which in my case with a septic system needs
to be pumped out and disposed of in a sanitary manner every few years.
In my case that is about $250 per honey wagon load.

And typically you need to use hot water and even soap to get
it clean. Mayonnaise is one of the worst. If it's bad enough,
I'll just toss it in with the garbage instead of wasting time
and energy to clean it. You have to wonder about the economics
and environmental impact of having to clean those hard to clean
things. I know people who clean even a can or jar until it's
spotless. If you go down to the township facility where they
accept stuff you bring in, they have a giant dumpster for the
recyclables and OMG, what a mess. It's obvious a lot of people
aren't cleaning up anything. But even when I tell people what
it looks like there, they still want to run the hot water to
make every bottle and can shiny.

I find that there's usually enough room in the dishwasher to
add the occasional mayo jar or whatever recyclable needs to
be cleaned.

My recyclables are stored on my enclosed porch until I schlep
them out to the (detached) garage. I don't want a bunch of
smelly food waste sitting around on my porch, which is also
my laundry room.

Cindy Hamilton

Hi Anthony,

On 5/3/2016 7:37 AM, HerHusband wrote:
When I make marinara/bolognese ("spaghetti") sauce, I use #10 cans of
ingredients (i.e., essentially the size of your head).

I've never checked myself, but I've heard larger 28 ounce cans of
tomatoes have more liquid per volume than smaller 14 ounce cans. No
point, just an interesting rumor.

Dunno. I use a few 106 oz cans of "ground tomatoes", plus a few of the
16 oz cans of puree (spices, etc.) and a REALLY long simmer (12-16 hours)
that is designed to "burn off" the moisture (let it condense on the
underside of the lid, then wipe it off every hour or so).

I get annoyed because each "move" requires me to find a suitable vendor
of tomato products. I used to make a great sauce with "6-in-1" brand
products but can't find them, here.

[I make it in 16qt batches. Sauce is probably the only justification,
IMO, for tomatoes! : ]

Ours sits in an easily accessed space. We pile items to be shredded
on top of it until the stack is unmanageable. Or, "looks big enough".
Then, feed them into it (to cut down on how often it has to run). I
htink it will shred something like 20 pages at a time -- or a couple
of CD's, stacked.

My shredder sits next to my desk in the office. It's easy to feed in
sensitive documents as they come in.

We keep ours in the garage -- adjacent to the (small) recycling bin
(which we periodically empty into the large recycling "barrel", outside)

I have switched to electronic billing wherever possible so I don't have
much paperwork to shred anymore. I keep the electronic documents on an
encrypted drive and have multiple backups.

We don't like having "online accounts". So, our utilities, bank statements,
etc. all come in dead tree form. I keep all my business paperwork virtually
indefinitely -- yet it all still fits neatly in a single file cabinet.
"Project files" probably account for a disproportionate amount of that
volume; often, there are documents that came with a project that only exist
in hard copy (and I am far too lazy to scan everything just to save space!)

I don't shred CD's or credit cards as that would contaminate my
recyclable paper with unrecyclable plastics.

The paper and plastic go in the same recycling container, here. As well
as tin cans, etc. Seems like it has to be incredibly inefficient to
have to sort this stuff at a central facility but that's how The Powers
That Be have decreed it...

As a coarse measure of just how inefficient recycling is, consider a
computer is worth about $5-10 in recycle value. Yet sells for...?

That's one of the reasons I like building my own computers. I only
replace the parts that need updating, such as a hard drive or graphics
card. Other than my laptop, I haven't bought a packaged PC in over 20
years.

I rescue machines that others may have outgrown. Or, were looking
for an excuse to upgrade. Or, that businesses shed in their 18-36mos
upgrade cycle.

E.g., this Optiplex 645 set me back $10
http://images.geeksimages.com/imageshare/O/300x300/OPTIPLEX-745-MAR-1R-unit.jpg
and another $5 for the 22" display
http://images10.newegg.com/NeweggImage/ProductImage/24-176-079-04.jpg

OTOH, my first 386's set me back $8K/each. So, I figure I'm entitled
to save a few bucks :

In most cases, I've been able to sell my old motherboards and other
computer parts on eBay.

I don't sell "things". Give them away or recycle. I don't want to
worry that someone will not feel they got "good value" out of a sale.

I recently noticed that the Atari Tempest I gave to a neighbor
http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/MTYwMFgxMjAw/z/8WoAAOSwnDZT77fz/$_1.JPG
now sells for ~$1-2K (factory new condition).

shrug

Currently trying to convince myself to break this habit and *sell*
some of my older, collectable kit (e.g., an ASR-33 in the garage
that really deserves a better home)

In my case, disposable razor blades, containers that have vestiges of
medicines/salves/creams/other "actives", remnants of soap bars, tissue
and TP. Any plastic containers (personal care products) go in the
(unsorted) recycle bin -- if the plastic is one of the "approved"
types. Tissue and TP get flushed ("But, the BACK SIDE is still
pristine!?"). The "cores" to the TP rolls are recycled as paper
products (ditto for the cores for paper towels).

We should recycle more items from the bathroom, but it's on the other end
of the house and there's no convenient "staging area" to set things till
we can take them out to the bin. It's mostly just laziness, as it's
easier to toss these items in the bathroom trash can. Thankfully, the
volume is quite small.

Shampoo bottles get hand carried to the "bin" in the garage (it's
really convenient having it there). When it fills, it gets dumped
in the bigger container outside.

So, not uncommon to see toilet paper cores, shampoo/mouthwash bottles,
etc. These are too big for us to want to put them in our regular
"trash bags" (indoors). So, the recycling option works to our benefit
(otherwise, we'd have to carry them out to the trash can, outside)

[We also wash and reuse our ziploc bags -- typ used for storing items
in the freezer. Though I have been moving to rigid containers as they
pack better (plastic bags have no real "form" and just kind of
"slouch")]

We've been using Rubbermaid containers for years as they are easy to
store, wash, and reuse. We have an assortment of ziploc bags in a
drawer, but mostly just use them when we travel (packaging we don't need
to bring back home).

We use rubbermaid and tupperware containers for food storage. E.g.,
I have many 3C containers that are permanently stained "tomato red" :

But, in the past, we've used bags to store things like individually
wrapped steaks, chicken brests cut into small pieces and individually
wrapped, hot dogs wrapped in pairs, pecans/walnuts/almonds in smaller
bags (which are then packed in a larger bag), mozzarella cheese in
~2C batches in small bags inside larger bags, etc.

I recently switched to small ~1/2 cu ft containers to use in their
place. But, you can't easily repack the things that have now
"conformally fit" into the bags; they no longer have nice, regular
shapes that would settle into a rigid container well.

So, we're waiting for our "past stores" to dwindle to the point that
we can replace them in the *new* containers.

Medicines are recycled at special annual recycling events FOR
pharmaceuticals.

Thankfully, I haven't reached a point that I need to take regular
medications. We always use up our over-the-counter meds so we don't have
those leftover either.

I've had Rx pain meds prescribed (prophylacticly) a few times in the
past. Or, Rx cough medications. Usually, I don't need them. So, they
sit on a shelf "just in case".

After a while, they lose their efficacy (actually, it is a LONG while!)
and have to be disposed of.

[Antibiotics always get consumed in their entirety]

The only OTC stuff I buy is Advil. And, we don't buy that in "Costco
quantities" so there's no concern of it expiring before we can use it.
(a bottle of 100 tablets probably lasts close to 2 years or more -- for
the two of us!)

On 5/3/2016 7:17 AM, HerHusband wrote:
In my town we have curbside recycling of motor oil and batteries.

Yep, we can set out motor oil in milk jugs and batteries on top of the bin
here too. We never have gallon milk jugs and I don't want to risk one
leaking all over the place by accident or vandalism.

We used to have two pickups a week. Curbside recycling (presort
the materials). You could even set out an old piece of furniture
(they'd notice it and send someone around to pick it up).

Then, they started getting squirrely. I set some motor oil out in
a Clorox bleach container -- clearly marked "motor oil" (my thinking
being that the bleach container was far more robust than the flimsy
plastic 1G milk jugs). They refused to take it -- until I poured it
into a milk jug, the next week.

Of course, *they* simply pour it into the truck and leave the soiled
bottle for you! :-/

Another time, I broke down some cardboard boxes and stacked them neatly.
Guy got out of the truck to write (in magic marker) that I needed
to cut them down to a specific size (just a tiny bit smaller than
they were, in their natural form).

(sigh) Fine. I can play by those rules.

I usually have other chemicals that need to be recycled as well (coolant,
brake fluid, old paints, etc.), so I just take it all to the recycler
myself. One or two trips a year is easy enough.

For us, it's a block out of our way. Biggest issue is remembering
which weekend (first of month) you need to target.

I frequently have batteries out of UPS's that can get recycled, there.
Costco used to take them (we're there every week) but has become a bit
more finicky. "Fine. I can play by those rules." And, the dregs of
the roof paint each year in a 5G pail (they claim I can just toss this
in the trash but I suspect not; why accept other paints and claim roof
paint is "safe"??)

On 05/03/2016 09:37 AM, HerHusband wrote:

[snip]

That's one of the reasons I like building my own computers. I only
replace the parts that need updating, such as a hard drive or graphics
card. Other than my laptop, I haven't bought a packaged PC in over 20
years.


Recently, my biggest computer failed. It was the power supply, and
replacing that fixed it. A lot of people would have had to replace the
whole thing (and create more trash) and spend a few hours reinstalling
everything (or actually a few days of weeks waiting for someone else to
do it), and possibly complaining about the lack of backups.

BTW, I'm thinking of the neighbor who became an unwilling victim of
Windows 10.

In most cases, I've been able to sell my old motherboards and other
computer parts on eBay.


I have sold some too (including my first "PC", with a 8088-compatible
V20 processor and 30MB hard disk that won't work with Windows).

[snip]

We have curbside recycling on Thursday, and sometimes the pickup is
late. I will look through the mail while standing next to the recycle
bin. Most of it goes directly in there.

--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

"I think the Zapruder film was arranged [by] Jesus, so that this
particular 'terrible head wound' would be seen by the whole word for
over 3 decades." [John Prewett, net.fundie.idiot]

On 5/3/2016 1:44 PM, Mark Lloyd wrote:
On 05/03/2016 09:37 AM, HerHusband wrote:

That's one of the reasons I like building my own computers. I only
replace the parts that need updating, such as a hard drive or graphics
card. Other than my laptop, I haven't bought a packaged PC in over 20
years.

Recently, my biggest computer failed. It was the power supply, and replacing
that fixed it.

I repair the power supply. Many ofmy machines have "special" power
supplies. E.g., the power supply for my SB2000 is about the size
of most tower computers:
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0989/9318/products/sun-300-1357-power-supply_large.jpeg?v=1457729732
http://www.recycledgoods.com/media/extendware/ewimageopt/media/inline/5f/3/sun-blade-2000-usparc-iii-cu-900mhz-p-n-600-7926-02-b4b.jpg
The power supplies in my FX160's (of which I grow fonder with each
passing day!) is about the size of an egg roll.
https://cdn6.bigcommerce.com/s-r4tr0/products/166331/images/243515/3608Large__97042.1457122331.380.500.jpg?c=2
etc. Oddball sizes/shapes and power capabilities.

A lot of people would have had to replace the whole thing (and
create more trash) and spend a few hours reinstalling everything (or actually a
few days of weeks waiting for someone else to do it), and possibly complaining
about the lack of backups.

For me to move to a new computer (even keeping the same OS) is a major
headache reinstalling applications -- AFTER sorting out the drivers
for the new box. I.e., building my three Windows workstations
(multimedia, document prep, eCAD) took the better part of two weeks
just to install all the software and sort out licensing issues.

I don't lightly contemplate "upgrades" unless I can see at least a
4-5X improvement (in "something")

We have curbside recycling on Thursday, and sometimes the pickup is late. I
will look through the mail while standing next to the recycle bin. Most of it
goes directly in there.

We have one of those gi-normous bins on wheels about the size of the
regular trash bin. As we don't generate much "waste" (recyclable or
otherwise), it often sits for several weeks before we've enough to
make it worth the effort to drag to the curb (silly to force the truck
to make a stop just to pick up 1/4 of a container full of material!).
Trash, OTOH, goes out each week even if 1/10th of a container full.

Especially in the hotter weather!

Mike Duffy wrote on Tue, 03 May 2016 10:00:27 -0400:

Did you read the reference?

Cats are the only host in which the parasite can reproduce.

My only point was that poop is poop and poop is good fertilizer and who
cares if it has toxoplasmosis when it's fertilizer?

You care if babies eat the stuff, but in my back yard, there are no
babies.

Anyway, if I had cats (which I don't) and if I kept them inside (which
I would think is cruel for a cat) and if they therefore needed kitty
litter, I would feel happy to recycle that kitty litter by dumping
it in the compost heap along with everything else.

I guess, the end results of the question is that most people are far
more picky about what they put in the three locations:

1. Waste that is composted at the household
2. Waste that is put in the trash to go to a landfill
3. Waste that is recycled

I guess I'm just less picky than most of you and thankfully, since we
put almost everything in the blue buckets that comes from inside the
house, the trash collectors are apparently not that picky either.

Lucky us.
Our prices seem on par with everyone elses for once/week pickup at
roughly a dollar a day.

Steve Stone wrote on Tue, 03 May 2016 07:28:41 -0400:

Every time you rinse out a food container that residue is going into
your septic or sewer system, which in my case with a septic system needs
to be pumped out and disposed of in a sanitary manner every few years.
In my case that is about $250 per honey wagon load.

I always wondered about that.

I am in hill country so the septic system is down hill by a lot.
I don't know how far, but I see a white pipe sticking up which is
about 100 feet from the house.

I don't know where the cleanout is even and I've lived here a decade.

I guess I'm not doing something that I should be doing, but how would
I even know that my septic system would need to be pumped out if I don't
even know where it is completely or where the drain is?

I realize that if it stunk and weeped I'd know that, but I think,
given it's on a steep slope, the chance of that happening seems slim.

How would I even test that my septic is getting close to being filled?

trader_4 wrote on Tue, 03 May 2016 05:26:47 -0700:

And typically you need to use hot water and even soap to get it clean.
Mayonnaise is one of the worst.

The wife makes mayonaise from three ingredients:
1. An egg
2. A squeeze of lemon
3. oil

She blends that in a way that takes skill (because I always end up
with a mess but she ends up with mayo) and it stays in the plastic
container until it is used up (usually it's about a cup of oil at
a time because you can't really make less and blend it successfully).

We just rinse it out in the dishwasher, and it seems to come clean.

HerHusband wrote on Tue, 03 May 2016 14:55:30 +0000:

We are required to have our septic system inspected every three years,
but I haven't had to pump my septic tank since 1999. Even then it wasn't
really needed, they just pumped out of routine when the inspection
program was started.

I was wondering about that because my septic system is about 100 feet or
so away and down a hill so I guess it's 20 feet below the house.

I don't even know where the cleanouts are. I haven't touched it since I
moved in 10 years ago, and, well, who knows how long it was in use before
that.

So, how do they "inspect" it anyway?
I presume I have to find the cleanout and then open it, and then what?

Do you just look?

Arthur Cresswell wrote on Tue, 03 May 2016 23:03:36 +0000:

The wife makes mayonaise from three ingredients:
1. An egg 2. A squeeze of lemon 3. oil

She blends that in a way that takes skill (because I always end up with
a mess but she ends up with mayo) and it stays in the plastic container
until it is used up (usually it's about a cup of oil at a time because
you can't really make less and blend it successfully).

We just rinse it out in the dishwasher, and it seems to come clean.

Same by the way with the ketchup.

When we need ketchup (catsup?), the wife whips up a batch out of:
1. Tomato paste
2. Vinegar
3. Spices (interestingly enough, stuff that is used in pumpkin pies!)

When the catsup/ketchup is done, we put the plastic container in
the dishwasher. Where the catsup goes from there, I never see it.

It is a pain to have to rinse out the tomato paste cans.

They should make tomato paste cans like they make caulking guns.

On Mon, 02 May 2016 21:09:16 +0000, Arthur Cresswell wrote:

So, given that my brown trash bin is never used, what on earth do people
*put* in their trash bin, that can't be recycled otherwise?

My recycling program says these are the acceptable items for recycling:
http://www.recologysiliconvalley.com...aRecycling.htm

Highlights:
Please empty and rinse all food and beverage containers.
Batteries Standard household batteries
Place in a clear, sealed plastic bag and set on top of the recycling cart.
Glass All glass food, beverage jars and bottles.
Remove lids and place separately in bin.
Fruit juice
Mayonnaise jars
Spaghetti sauce jars
Metal All metal food and beverage containers.
Aluminum cans
Tin/steel food and beverage cans
Plastic All rigid containers marked #1 - #7
Milk and juice jugs
Shampoo, detergent, and other household bottles
Soft drink and water bottles
Yogurt, margarine, and other food containers
Paper Put mixed paper in the toter labeled: Mixed / Office Paper.
Adhesive notes
Brown paper grocery bags
Cardboard (Break down boxes and bundle larger pieces securely using twine and
place next to container)
Envelopes (Including plastic window types)
Food boxes (cereal, crackers, frozen food - Remove plastic liners)
Junk mail
Magazines & catalogs
Newspaper
Paper (colored, computer, white)
Paper bags
Paper egg cartons, paper towel rolls
Phone books
Wrapping Paper
Used motor oil may be set out in one-gallon plastic containers with tight fitting,
screw top lids only.
You may place up to two one-gallon containers next to your recycling cart for pickup
and empty recycled one-gallon containers will be left in their place.
Place fully drained motor oil filters in a sealed, leak-proof, plastic bag and
place next to your recycle cart.

Unacceptable Recycling Materials
Construction Debris
Concrete, rocks, dirt
Electronic / Universal Waste
Televisions, computers, cell phones, batteries, fluorescent light bulbs,
mercury switches
Household Hazardous Waste
Paints, solvents, cooking oil, motor oil, cleaners, corrosives, fuel tanks - propane tanks, syringes

This is what it says goes in the garbage can:
http://www.recologysiliconvalley.com...araGarbage.htm

Glass
Auto, mirror and tinted glass
Glassware, crystal and dinnerware
Household window glass
Light bulbs (except fluorescent bulbs)
Metal
Clothes hangers
Foil
Pots and pans
Scrap metal
Wire rope
Organic Material
Animal feces or manure
Food scraps
Paper
Milk cartons and other waxed paper
Paper towels, napkins and facial tissues
Soiled papers, food wrappings, napkins, tissues or towels
Plastic
Bubble wrap
PVC or other plastic piping
Shrink wrap and plastic bags and liners
Styrofoam/polystyrene containers and packing peanuts
Toys, trays, cups, garden hoses, flower pots
Unmarked plastics

On 5/3/2016 8:07 AM, HerHusband wrote:

[plastic "grocery bags"]

We take ours back to the grocery store. Personally, I would be happy if
they did away with the plastic bags and went back to paper. The plastic
bags always seem to break or have holes in them. And I could reuse or
recycle the paper bags.

We visit many stores in a typical shopping day. We use a reusable bag
at two of them -- lined with a paper bag (that we obtain from a third).
As it's always hot, here, we carry one or two coolers with us (even though
we're close to home). So, anything refrigerated or frozen goes straight
into a cooler -- no bags needed.

Most other things are large enough to not need a bag of their own
(e.g., a 12pack of grinder rolls, a 30 pack of toilet paper, etc.).
We keep an oversized milk crate (it's "rectangular" instead of "square")
in the back of the vehicle which we use to transport the larger items
and keep them from jostling around in transit.

We use the flimsy plastic bags when we purchase flour or sugar as
we wrap the sacks of flour/sugar with these bags prior to storing
them in the freezer. (I buy flour in 50lb lots -- usually when it is
on sale)

Every few weeks, the paper grocery bag "liner" that we use in the reusable
bag ends up with a "fatal tear". So, we'll replace ONE with the *one*
paper bag that we collect on that week's shopping trip and toss the
torn one in the recycling container

I frequently see those plastic shopping bags blowing around in town, caught
in tree branches or stuck to fences. Such a shame for something that won't
degrade in the environment.

Yup. And, they often get "sucked" out of trash bins in the neighborhood.

What I find most annoying is folks who will buy one little thing -- and want
it in a bag. Sheesh, it's already IN its *own* bag, why do you need
yet another?

Stores used to ask if you wanted paper or plastic, but the last several
years they don't even ask and just use plastic. For a while I asked for
paper, but they acted annoyed and often didn't have any at the register
anyway.

The place from which we obtain our ONE paper bag each week always wants
to double bag -- because the handles tear off the bags! So, *I* opt to
do the bagging and then just grab the bag from the bottom as we leave;
no need to discard TWO paper bags!

We did switch to reusable shopping bags for a while, but just stopped doing
it at some point. I don't remember why, probably just laziness.

We keep ours in the back of the car (stored in that milk crate). So, all
we have to do is remember to take them out before we head into the store.
Otherwise, it's a hundred foot walk BACK to the car to retrieve it...

On 5/2/16 5:09 PM, Arthur Cresswell wrote:
For the past two years I have not put out a trash can at the
curb while my neighbor's trash cans are filled to the brim.

What gives?

Here's what I throw out:
1. Everything that is "food" gets composted, so, there's no actual
food in the trash (and yes, bones and meat and oils are food
just as much as carrots and spoiled ketchup or mustard is food).

2. Every "container" containing food is rinsed out, so, the container
itself is clean (for the most part), and the container goes into
the "blue" recycling bin (which is 60 gallons I believe).

3. Every box or piece of paper or wrapper or envelope or anything
whatsoever with printing on it goes into the recycle bin.

4. I almost never have electronic waste (once or twice a year?) so
let's forget about TVs and refrigerators and batteries and
broken cellphones, etc. since they're so rarely put in trash.

5. About the only place there is anything even remotely resembling
"trash" is the bathroom. But even there, all biologically soiled
tissues go down the toilet, so, the trash contains bits of
cotton balls or q tips or nose-blowing tissue paper, all of which
goes into the blue recycling bucket (it's not pretty, but it's
recyclable).

6. Everything that pays the CRV of five and ten cents goes into
a special bucket for dropping off to get my CRV back, so, there
are very few bottles other than clean food bottles and jars in
the recycling.

7. I almost never have clothing trash, although they're recyclable
anyway, so, the once a year I throw out a pair of jeans would go
into the recycling bins anyway.

8. Of course, all yard waste would go into the green landscaping
bins, so, let's not even discuss leaves and branches here.

9. No babies for quite some time, so, there are no soiled diapers
to worry about (and anyway, we always used the cloth ones
so there's nothing to recycle except the wash water which goes
down the drain).

10. Motor oil is a separate thing, which happens two or three times
a year, as do tires and mechanical parts, all of which are
recycled in their own way already (e.g., tires go to Costco
while motor oil goes in jugs set alongside the trash bins).

So, given that my brown trash bin is never used, what on earth do
people *put* in their trash bin, that can't be recycled otherwise?


So BFD. Other than PC libbies, tree huggers, and the save-the-whales
crowd- who gives a rat's ass?

--
Political correctness is a doctrine...fostered by an illogical minority
and widely promoted by the left and the mainstream media...that
postulates its entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.

On 5/3/2016 4:44 PM, Mark Lloyd wrote:

Recently, my biggest computer failed. It was the power supply, and
replacing that fixed it. A lot of people would have had to replace the
whole thing (and create more trash) and spend a few hours reinstalling
everything (or actually a few days of weeks waiting for someone else to
do it), and possibly complaining about the lack of backups.


You are so right about computer crash, and the endless
work to get all the programs "just right".

Good job, sir, about sending less computer to the
landfill. You aren't keeping the economy going,
spending money on computers. But you do reduce the
landfill waste.

As for me, I'm on about my 4th power supply for this
2007 model frankencomputer. It's alive!

--
..
Christopher A. Young
learn more about Jesus
.. www.lds.org
..
..

Don,

I have switched to electronic billing wherever possible so I don't
have much paperwork to shred anymore.

We don't like having "online accounts". So, our utilities, bank
statements, etc. all come in dead tree form.

I'm betting all of your accounts are already online, they just print them
out and mail them to you. Not to mention, many places are starting to
charge for printed statements.

We've been all electronic for many years. Paychecks are deposited
automatically, bills are deducted automatically, statements are downloaded
to my computer. I pay most of our remaining bills online (property taxes,
vehicle licenses, etc.). I have probably written fewer than three checks
in the last several years.

it all still fits neatly in a single file cabinet.

Electronic documents don't take up physical space (other than the hard
drive itself), but more importantly I can have multiple backups of each
document.

I don't sell "things". Give them away or recycle. I don't want to
worry that someone will not feel they got "good value" out of a sale.

Unfortunately, I usually need to sell my old items in order to pay for the
new items.

The only OTC stuff I buy is Advil.

We use Advil for headaches and inflammation. Aleve works better for sore
muscles. Pepto-bismol pills for the rare times dinner doesn't settle well.


Anthony Watson
www.watsondiy.com
www.mountainsoftware.com

Arthur,

We are required to have our septic system inspected every three years,
but I haven't had to pump my septic tank since 1999. Even then it wasn't
really needed, they just pumped out of routine when the inspection
program was started.

So, how do they "inspect" it anyway?

I have to dig down and expose the access cover of the septic tank. I think
the inspector will dig it up, but I know exactly where it is located.
Thankfully, the top of my septic tank is only 6" below the ground.

They open the cover and use a pole with a board on it to take measurements.
They measure the sludge build up at the bottom of the tank, and the scum
layer floating on top. They also do a quick visual inspection of the drain
field, to make sure it's not a smelly swamp or something. Takes them less
than 10 minutes, then they charge me $125.

If the scum or sludge layers build up too close to the inlet pipe, they are
required to pump the tank. Naturally, the cost goes way up if they have to
pump.

When the county first started the inspection program here, they just
routinely pumped the tanks every few years.

Then they switched to actually measuring the contents and only pumping when
needed. Initially, they allowed homeowners to take the measurements, but I
don't know if they allow that anymore.

We're actually due for our septic inspection next month.

Anthony Watson
www.watsondiy.com
www.mountainsoftware.com

On 5/3/2016 9:12 PM, HerHusband wrote:
I have switched to electronic billing wherever possible so I don't
have much paperwork to shred anymore.

We don't like having "online accounts". So, our utilities, bank
statements, etc. all come in dead tree form.

I'm betting all of your accounts are already online, they just print them
out and mail them to you.

No doubt. But, as *we've* never set up to access them (which would stop the
paper statements from coming), we're pretty sure no one else is seeing them.
And, as we have the sole "physical" mailed copy, we're pretty sure no one
is seeing the paper copies, either.

Not to mention, many places are starting to
charge for printed statements.

One of my checking accounts tried to go that route -- wanting $8.95/month
for the paper copies of the statements (thinking that would coerce me into
going electronic). I thanked them for their offer by closing the account.
Always someone ready to hold my money on my terms! :

We've been all electronic for many years. Paychecks are deposited
automatically, bills are deducted automatically, statements are downloaded
to my computer. I pay most of our remaining bills online (property taxes,
vehicle licenses, etc.). I have probably written fewer than three checks
in the last several years.

We write very few checks -- use plastic and cash for most payments so just
pay off the credit card companies each month. An order of 100 checks can
last me many years.

I am always amused when I see these folks with 5-digit check numbers!

it all still fits neatly in a single file cabinet.

Electronic documents don't take up physical space (other than the hard
drive itself), but more importantly I can have multiple backups of each
document.

Yup. OTOH, you're reliant on a medium that you can't implicitly verify
(can you LOOK at a thumb drive/CD/DVD/etc. and KNOW that it is intact?)

Late in my career, I learned to gather electronic versions of every document
that I was using in a project. E.g., much easier to keep a PDF of a 1200
page datasheet than to keep a physical copy of it -- esp when you might need
several different documents for a single project. I find *using* the documents
in electronic form to be tedious. OTOH, coming back to a project after some
time is much easier with electronic documents as I can search for something
that I remember (and no longer have a dog-eared copy to notice the bookmarks).

I don't sell "things". Give them away or recycle. I don't want to
worry that someone will not feel they got "good value" out of a sale.

Unfortunately, I usually need to sell my old items in order to pay for the
new items.

My solution is to buy inexpensive items : E.g., I bought a 25 ft USB A-B
cable today -- for a buck. And, three wireless Logitech mice for a buck
each.

Biggest cash layouts in years have been for external USB disks -- roughly
$100/each.

The only OTC stuff I buy is Advil.

We use Advil for headaches and inflammation. Aleve works better for sore
muscles. Pepto-bismol pills for the rare times dinner doesn't settle well.


Learn to cook better! : (I find Pepto-Bismol to be *nasty* stuff!)

I use Advil for the occasional headache -- esp during allergy season(s)
(which is virtually year round, here). Usually a pair will fix things.

Don,

as we have the sole "physical" mailed copy, we're pretty
sure no one is seeing the paper copies, either.

That doesn't prevent hackers from accessing the online electronic
versions. Just ask Home Depot, Target, Sony, etc...

One of my checking accounts tried to go that route -- wanting
$8.95/month for the paper copies of the statements (thinking that
would coerce me into going electronic). I thanked them for their
offer by closing the account.

Unfortunately, there are no alternatives for many of my bills (garbage,
electric, cable internet, etc.). You either pay the paper fee or go
electronic.

use plastic and cash for most payments so just pay off the
credit card companies each month.

Yep, same here. I'm sure the banks don't like us as we have't paid a
finance charge in many, many years.

An order of 100 checks can last me many years. I am always amused
when I see these folks with 5-digit check numbers!

We're still using the same checks we bought 25+ years ago. We're up to
check number 2200 now. We almost never use checks anymore. The few places
that still required them (income taxes, property taxes, etc.) have now
gone electronic too.

We still have several books of checks left from that original order.
They'll probably last the rest of our lives.

you're reliant on a medium that you can't implicitly verify (can
you LOOK at a thumb drive/CD/DVD/etc. and KNOW that it is intact?)

Flash drives and optical discs are bad backup mediums. I think flash
drives are rated for only 5 years, and I've had CD's become unreadable
after just a year. I only use those for short term storage, specifically
when I need to mail data to someone else.

Blu-Ray's are "supposed" to be longer lasting (25+ years), but I don't
trust them for my sole backups. There are discs made by M-Disc that are
supposed to last 1000+ years, but the cost and storage limits are still
an issue.

I'm more about redundancy. I backup to hard drives because they're fast,
inexpensive, and can store a lot of data. But I EXPECT the drive to fail
at some point, so I have multiple hard drive backups. I also backup
important data to BluRay discs every so often just to have another copy.

The one downside to rewriteable backups (flash drives and hard drives) is
that the data can change. If the data on my main drive is corrupted
(drive failure, virus, etc.), my automated backups can copy that
corrupted data to my backup drive (overwriting the previous backup with
the new corrupted backup). I may not discover it until it is too late.
That's one of the reasons I still backup to BluRays every now and then.
As long as the disc is still readable, I know the data won't change.

As for verifying the data, there are programs that can calculate MD5
hashes for the files on the drive. This allows you to quickly verify that
the files on the drive have not changed since they were written to the
drive. Of course, it's a time consuming process to calculate the hashes,
and I'm probably not going to take the time to verify the documents. So,
I stopped doing the MD5 hashing, and just rely on multiple copies.

Paper documents aren't necessarily foolproof either. A while back I went
through our fire safe to clean out documents we no longer needed. I was
surprised to find that most of the thermal printed documents (most store
receipts) were completely faded. They were just white pieces of paper.
Thankfully, I had previously scanned the important receipts so I still
had electronic copies.

You could have similar issues with fire, water damage, or insects.

I find *using* the documents in electronic form to be tedious.

It took me a while to adapt to balancing our checkbooks using the PDF
bank statements instead of the printed statements I was used to. Now it
seems just as easy as the paper versions.

Learn to cook better! : (I find Pepto-Bismol to be *nasty* stuff!)

We cook well, but sometimes we might drink a little too much, or eat
something we knew we shouldn't. For example, I hadn't eaten a donut in
years but gave in to temptation last week and bought some maple bars. Big
mistake, I was up all night with indigestion. I won't do that again. I
just can't tolerate fatty foods like that anymore.

I hate the liquid version of Pepto-Bismol too, but the pill versions work
just as well without the yucky factor.

I use Advil for the occasional headache

I don't have any allergies and rarely get a headache. But Advil does work
best for headaches. It also works good for things like sore throats, or
swelling. It doesn't seem to do anything for sore muscles though.

We find Aleve to be a miracle drug for muscle pain.

Anthony Watson
www.watsondiy.com
www.mountainsoftware.com

Greetings!

On 5/4/2016 7:44 AM, HerHusband wrote:
as we have the sole "physical" mailed copy, we're pretty
sure no one is seeing the paper copies, either.

That doesn't prevent hackers from accessing the online electronic
versions. Just ask Home Depot, Target, Sony, etc...

Of course! Nor the IRS, etc. But, we don't have accounts with Home Depot,
Sony, Target, etc. grin

What it does prevent is malware on any machine that *we* use to access them
from leaking that information to a bad guy. If you're "on-line" (with "that"
machine -- i.e., to pay bills and access accounts) often, then you are more
likely to encounter something you "shouldn't" (e.g., a driveby), drop your
guard for a moment, use it to ALSO read mail/WWW/etc.

One of my checking accounts tried to go that route -- wanting
$8.95/month for the paper copies of the statements (thinking that
would coerce me into going electronic). I thanked them for their
offer by closing the account.

Unfortunately, there are no alternatives for many of my bills (garbage,
electric, cable internet, etc.). You either pay the paper fee or go
electronic.

It actually costs *more* for us to pay electronically with some of our bills.
E.g., city water/sewer charges an extra fee for that "service".

use plastic and cash for most payments so just pay off the
credit card companies each month.

Yep, same here. I'm sure the banks don't like us as we have't paid a
finance charge in many, many years.

I'm pretty OCD when it comes to paying bills on time. Had to rush home
for one of those "hopefully he'll still be alive when you get here"
sort of events. Grabbed a laptop (to work), a change of clothes (have
laundry facilities there!) and my checkbook.

I was there ~2+ months. Consulted the payment dates in the checkbook to
know when each bill would be coming (I pay promptly when I receive the bill).
Then, telephoned each entity to inquire as to my current balance (account
numbers recorded in the comments field for each checkbook entry) and the
address to which I should mail the payment.

An order of 100 checks can last me many years. I am always amused
when I see these folks with 5-digit check numbers!

We're still using the same checks we bought 25+ years ago. We're up to
check number 2200 now. We almost never use checks anymore. The few places
that still required them (income taxes, property taxes, etc.) have now
gone electronic too.

I find (canceled) checks are a great "receipt" for many of my business
purchases. I don't have to look through lists of every credit card
purchase to try to understand what each charge may have been.

We still have several books of checks left from that original order.
They'll probably last the rest of our lives.

you're reliant on a medium that you can't implicitly verify (can
you LOOK at a thumb drive/CD/DVD/etc. and KNOW that it is intact?)

Flash drives and optical discs are bad backup mediums. I think flash
drives are rated for only 5 years, and I've had CD's become unreadable
after just a year. I only use those for short term storage, specifically
when I need to mail data to someone else.

Flash drives that see repeated use tend to fail, IME. I have a 32G drive
that's essentially new that will only write at ~1MB/s. It's on the list
to be replaced, today (stores a copy of MP3's for the car's player)

OTOH, I'm pretty confident copying last year's tax return onto the "Finances"
thumb drive that we keep in the bug-out-bag.

I've had great luck with optical media (CD/DVD) lasting 5 or more years.
Likewise, tape and MO media. But, I tend to "baby" it -- cool, dark places,
etc. Also, record on the slowest setting possible, no overburns, etc.

Blu-Ray's are "supposed" to be longer lasting (25+ years), but I don't
trust them for my sole backups. There are discs made by M-Disc that are
supposed to last 1000+ years, but the cost and storage limits are still
an issue.

I'm more about redundancy. I backup to hard drives because they're fast,
inexpensive, and can store a lot of data. But I EXPECT the drive to fail
at some point, so I have multiple hard drive backups. I also backup
important data to BluRay discs every so often just to have another copy.

Yes. I probably have ~20+T in my archive. But, that incorporates the
redundancy -- at least two copies of everything. I have every "object"
tracked in a database using a simple schema:
(unique_identifier, name, container, checksum, other-meta-data)
So, a file called "2015" residing in "/Finances/Taxes/Federal" on the
"XYZ" volume has the following entries:
(1, "XYZ", -, ...)
(2, "Finances", 1, ...)
(3, "Taxes", 2, ...)
(5, "Federal", 3, ...)
(82, "2015", 5, ...)
A backup copy called "IRS" in "/MyFiles/2015" on the BB volume would add:
(70, "BB", -, ...)
(951, "MyFiles", 70, ...)
(952, "2015", 951, ...)
(955, "IRS", 952, ...)
While another called "2015" in "/Taxes/IRS.zip" on the XYZ volume adds:
(79, "Taxes", 1, ...)
(10023, "IRS.zip", 79, ...)
(88888, "2015", 10023, ...)
I.e., each of these objects are the same object (contents) just with different
names and in different containers (a container can obviously be a directory
or an "archive file").

Because they will all have the same "checksum" (hash), I can automagically
locate potential duplicates -- by those hashes ("name" is immaterial).
Then, track down where they are located by walking the tuples backwards.

So, I can have as many copies as I want -- on as many different media/volumes!
I.e., as long as the "volume name" is unique, I don't care if it is a CD, DVD,
internal hard disk, CF card, MO cartridge, tape reel, etc. Find it, mount it
and the database will tell you how to retrieve the desired "contents".

And, because I have a stored hash of each object's "desired" contents, I
can periodically walk through any mounted volumes and verify their
contents against the stored hashes. So, I know if a medium is degrading
*before* it fails -- as well as what its contents "were" -- so I can
recreate it on a fresh medium!

The one downside to rewriteable backups (flash drives and hard drives) is
that the data can change. If the data on my main drive is corrupted
(drive failure, virus, etc.), my automated backups can copy that
corrupted data to my backup drive (overwriting the previous backup with
the new corrupted backup). I may not discover it until it is too late.

Exactly. The flaw in most backup scenarios (and why I have the "active
scrubbing" mechanism outlined above). You *may* get an ECC error ("read
error") when you try to make that backup. But, the "drive/transport/driver"
usually won't let you see the raw, "corrupted" data in those events! So,
you can't even decide if "everything looks intact except the name on the
document is AnThony instead of Anthony (single bit flip)!

Then, you are reliant on some ad hoc scheme to recall where THE backup
of this file is located so you can (hopefully) use it to restore THIS
instance.

That's one of the reasons I still backup to BluRays every now and then.
As long as the disc is still readable, I know the data won't change.

As for verifying the data, there are programs that can calculate MD5
hashes for the files on the drive. This allows you to quickly verify that
the files on the drive have not changed since they were written to the
drive. Of course, it's a time consuming process to calculate the hashes,
and I'm probably not going to take the time to verify the documents. So,
I stopped doing the MD5 hashing, and just rely on multiple copies.

I have appliances that I designed that do this as soon as they are turned
on. I.e., if I need to access some files from the archive (for a new
project, etc.), then I fire up the appliance(s), mount the particular
volumes that the database has told me contain the files of interest
(usually a large sub-tree -- like /Projects/1988/ClientX/ProjectY)
and pull a copy of the files off the archive onto whatever medium
is appropriate for my current need.

Once the appliance is up and the drive(s) spinning, the "verify job"
resumes -- and just keeps marching through whichever volume(s) happen to
be mounted, checking hashes based on where the job left off the last time
it "saw" these volume(s).

So, I just leave the box run for a while and let it slog through as
much as it can -- before I decide to spin everything down. In that
way, the "verification" is essentially free -- I don't have to wait for
EVERYTHING to be verified; just let it remember how much progress it made
so that it can pick up from that point next time.

[I store "timestamp of last verify" with each database tuple so I can
query the database and figure out which objects have NOT been verified
in the longest time -- and, how long that has been]

Note that I can incorporate "original media" into this scheme as well!
Just make an entry for the volume identity of the original medium
(e.g., the DVD for Windows7 install) and let the software catalog
the files on the medium, the "containers" for each and their hashes.
If I clone any of those files to any other place in the archive system,
I'll be able to find those copies based on the hashes and other metadata!

Paper documents aren't necessarily foolproof either. A while back I went
through our fire safe to clean out documents we no longer needed. I was
surprised to find that most of the thermal printed documents (most store
receipts) were completely faded. They were just white pieces of paper.
Thankfully, I had previously scanned the important receipts so I still
had electronic copies.

Yup! The same is true for NCR paper and many store receipts. We photocopy
documents before archiving cuz the photocopies seem to be more resilient.
(some of my early tax records have lots of "blank slips of paper" tucked in
the folders -- all the "original receipts" documenting those purchases! : )

You could have similar issues with fire, water damage, or insects.

Yup. And CD/DVD/BRay/MO/tape/etc. are just as vulnerable to fire, water
damage, etc. OTOH, paper rarely suffers from a "bearing failure"... :

(Do you have backups of the various *drives* that each of these media
require?)

I find *using* the documents in electronic form to be tedious.

It took me a while to adapt to balancing our checkbooks using the PDF
bank statements instead of the printed statements I was used to. Now it
seems just as easy as the paper versions.

I just balance using the check register. Once an entry (deposit, withdrawal,
check, etc.) has been accounted for, I "check it off" in the register.
So, I know the calculations that it was involved in are correct. All I
have to do is deal with the (few) new entries since the most recent
"checkpoint".

I only use the bank statement to know which items have cleared and what
THEY think my balance should be. Irritating if a check is slow to be
processed but no big deal to add that amount back into "my" balance.

Learn to cook better! : (I find Pepto-Bismol to be *nasty* stuff!)

We cook well, but sometimes we might drink a little too much, or eat
something we knew we shouldn't. For example, I hadn't eaten a donut in
years but gave in to temptation last week and bought some maple bars. Big
mistake, I was up all night with indigestion. I won't do that again. I
just can't tolerate fatty foods like that anymore.

frown Thankfully, I don't appear to have any similar problems. I
once got sick from some "bad chicken" I tasted as a sampler. Taught me
not to eat *in* grocery stores!

We don't drink so that's not a risk (SWMBO might have a shot of brandy
if she's having trouble falling asleep; I just make sure I'm dead tired! : )

I hate the liquid version of Pepto-Bismol too, but the pill versions work
just as well without the yucky factor.

I use Advil for the occasional headache

I don't have any allergies and rarely get a headache.

Unfortunately, I have *lots* of "seasonal allergies". My scratch test
results raised eyebrows. And, here, things are ALWAYS growing. So,
it's just one allergen after another. Apparently manifests in sinuses
leading to headaches above/behind the eyes, etc.

SLIT regimen this year seems to be making a difference. Never should have
stopped it, previously. :

But Advil does work best for headaches.

I find it invaluable for "lack of sleep" headaches. Often, can't GET to
sleep if fighting one of those! Of course, going to sleep "as required"
would also eliminate the problem... :

It also works good for things like sore throats, or
swelling. It doesn't seem to do anything for sore muscles though.

I guess I just consider sore muscles to be a natural consequence of
physical labor. Never thought of "taking" anything for them -- other
than a nice hot shower. And, a good sleep that night!

We find Aleve to be a miracle drug for muscle pain.

Don,

It actually costs *more* for us to pay electronically with some of our
bills. E.g., city water/sewer charges an extra fee for that "service".

I have a couple of annual bills that charge a small fee like that (1
dollar I think). The alternative is to write a check, put it in an
envelope, stick a stamp on, and drive to the post office to mail it. All
of those add up to a lot more than the dollar service fee. Even if it's
cheaper to write the check, the convenience is worth it to me. With a few
clicks I can pay and be done with it.

I'm pretty OCD when it comes to paying bills on time.

I'm the same way, which is one of the reasons I setup auto pay for every
bill I could. Paychecks get deposited and bills get paid even if I'm
sick, on vacation, or otherwise unable to pay them on time.

The only catch is that you have to have the money in the bank account,
but we budget the money before we even get the bills, so it's always
there.

Flash drives that see repeated use tend to fail, IME.
OTOH, I'm pretty confident copying last year's tax return onto the
"Finances" thumb drive that we keep in the bug-out-bag.

Yep, writing is harder on flash drives than reading, but you're still
relying on an electrical charge that fades over time. The odds are good
that your data will still be readable, but there's always a chance it
won't be. What if you lose the flash drive, or it gets damaged
physically?

I've had great luck with optical media (CD/DVD) lasting 5 or more
years.

Optical discs tend to degrade from the outer edge inward as the organic
dyes break down. Most discs aren't filled to capacity, so the degradation
may not be a problem for most uses.

Back when I used CD's for backups, I used software that split the data
over multiple discs. It filled each disc to capacity, so data was written
right out to very edge of the disc. I babied the discs in cool, dark
places too, but several discs had numerous errors just a year later when
I tried to verify them.

Likewise, tape and MO media.

Magnetic media seems to be fairly reliable as long as you keep them away
from magnetic fields.

Yes. I probably have ~20+T in my archive. But, that incorporates the
redundancy -- at least two copies of everything. I have every
"object" tracked in a database using a simple schema

My system is no where as complicated. I keep everything on the 1TB drive
in my computer. That gets backed up several times a day to an external
3TB USB drive. Once a month or so, I swap that backup drive with another
drive I keep in a safe deposit box at the bank. Then once or twice a year
I make a "last hope" backup to blu-ray discs.

Ironically, I haven't needed to restore anything from my backups since I
put the system in place many years ago.

Exactly. The flaw in most backup scenarios (and why I have the
"active scrubbing" mechanism outlined above). You *may* get an ECC
error ("read error") when you try to make that backup. But, the
"drive/transport/driver" usually won't let you see the raw,
"corrupted" data in those events! So, you can't even decide if
"everything looks intact except the name on the document is AnThony
instead of Anthony (single bit flip)!

Yep, it's extremely rare, but it has happened to me in the past.

I wish someone would make external WORM drives (write once, read many)
with decent capacity at an affordable price. Sandisk used to make 1GB USB
WORM drives but I don't think they're available anymore. 1GB is way too
small these days anyway. It wouldn't even hold a short HD video.

The M-Disc's are probably the closest to that idea, but they're expensive
and the 25GB capacity is still quite limited.

Yup. And CD/DVD/BRay/MO/tape/etc. are just as vulnerable to fire,
water damage, etc. OTOH, paper rarely suffers from a "bearing
failure"... :

That's why I keep a second backup in my safe deposit box. If I have a
major disaster at home, I'll still have the drive at the bank. If the
bank is destroyed, I still have my copies at home.

I live on a mountain, the bank is down in the valley. So the odds of us
suffering the same disaster are unlikely. If we're both hit, my computer
data is probably the least of my worries...

(Do you have backups of the various *drives* that each of these media
require?)

Nope, but I have redundency. If one drive fails, I still have two other
copies to fall back on. Three if you count the Blu-Ray discs.

I also migrate my backups to new drives as technology improves. Actually,
I usually upgrade to new drives long before they wear out because I need
more storage space.

frown Thankfully, I don't appear to have any similar problems.

I used to live on fried foods. Then my wife insisted I started eating
healthier. It took a while to adjust but now that's just our normal diet.
Now if I try to eat the foods I used to enjoy, they make me feel tired
and bloated.

Unfortunately, I have *lots* of "seasonal allergies".

I am thankful I do not have any allergies. Every spring the pollen here
in the forest is so bad my black car turns a shade of green. It's a mess
to clean up, but I don't get so much as a sniffle.

I find it invaluable for "lack of sleep" headaches.

With only rare exceptions, I have never had a problem sleeping either.
I'm out as soon as I hit the bed and easily sleep 8 hours without waking
up. I wake up refreshed and excited to start a new day.

I guess I just consider sore muscles to be a natural consequence of
physical labor. Never thought of "taking" anything for them

Unfortunately, I've struggled with back pain most of my life. Sometimes
it gets so bad I have sharp painful spasms that drop me to the ground.
Extremely painful. I usually have to go to the doctor and take muscle
relaxers for a few days when it gets that bad.

Anthony Watson
www.watsondiy.com
www.mountainsoftware.com

Hi Anthony,

On 5/4/2016 9:14 PM, HerHusband wrote:
It actually costs *more* for us to pay electronically with some of our
bills. E.g., city water/sewer charges an extra fee for that "service".

I have a couple of annual bills that charge a small fee like that (1
dollar I think). The alternative is to write a check, put it in an
envelope, stick a stamp on, and drive to the post office to mail it. All
of those add up to a lot more than the dollar service fee. Even if it's
cheaper to write the check, the convenience is worth it to me. With a few
clicks I can pay and be done with it.

To each his own. SWMBO had something tied to one of the checking accounts.
Then, ended up with a hassle when she closed that account; have to notify
the vendor of new account, etc. Easier just to decide how you're going
to pay *when* you go to pay, IMO.

I'm pretty OCD when it comes to paying bills on time.

I'm the same way, which is one of the reasons I setup auto pay for every
bill I could. Paychecks get deposited and bills get paid even if I'm
sick, on vacation, or otherwise unable to pay them on time.

SWMBO likes to drag things out to the last possible minute -- she'll
write out a check, put it in a stamped envelope and slap a Post-It
on top telling her which day to mail it.

I, OTOH, open mail and pay immediately -- so I don't have to remember
to pay something.

But, we're real anal about these sorts of things. Never late fees, etc.
E.g., I don't think I've ever been late returning a book to the library!

The only catch is that you have to have the money in the bank account,
but we budget the money before we even get the bills, so it's always
there.

Flash drives that see repeated use tend to fail, IME.
OTOH, I'm pretty confident copying last year's tax return onto the
"Finances" thumb drive that we keep in the bug-out-bag.

Yep, writing is harder on flash drives than reading, but you're still
relying on an electrical charge that fades over time.

Yup. And, as geometries shrink and folks use MLC (esp for consumer kit),
that "charge" is on the order of 100 electrons! (amazing!)

The odds are good
that your data will still be readable, but there's always a chance it
won't be. What if you lose the flash drive, or it gets damaged
physically?

Same thing with any medium.

I don't like flash drives because they hide information regarding their
operating state. You have to *infer* that the drive is failing based on
how long it takes to write to it *as* it nears capacity (most USB
sticks have no overprovisioning). So, when you can *sense* there's
a problem, it's already THERE! (you get no advanced warning)

I had one drive that spontaneously decided to become "read only".
It gave me reliable access to my data -- but no way to erase or
overwrite any of it!

I just tossed a (practically new!) 32G drive presently that only writes
at 1MB/s. Yeah, they're inexpensive but what value the DATA they hold?

I've had great luck with optical media (CD/DVD) lasting 5 or more
years.

Optical discs tend to degrade from the outer edge inward as the organic
dyes break down. Most discs aren't filled to capacity, so the degradation
may not be a problem for most uses.

This is also true of "printed" discs. E.g., in the laser video disc days,
it was called "laser rot". I've also encountered store-bought (prerecorded)
audio CD's that were defective.

And, with the extensive ECC employed on them, you have no way of knowing
how *much* error correcting is happening "under the hood"; no way to
anticipate failures!

Back when I used CD's for backups, I used software that split the data
over multiple discs. It filled each disc to capacity, so data was written
right out to very edge of the disc. I babied the discs in cool, dark
places too, but several discs had numerous errors just a year later when
I tried to verify them.

Likewise, tape and MO media.

Magnetic media seems to be fairly reliable as long as you keep them away
from magnetic fields.

You have to "retension" tape periodically to avoid "print through".

Yes. I probably have ~20+T in my archive. But, that incorporates the
redundancy -- at least two copies of everything. I have every
"object" tracked in a database using a simple schema

My system is no where as complicated. I keep everything on the 1TB drive
in my computer. That gets backed up several times a day to an external
3TB USB drive. Once a month or so, I swap that backup drive with another
drive I keep in a safe deposit box at the bank. Then once or twice a year
I make a "last hope" backup to blu-ray discs.

Obviously, I've got a lot more "data" in my archive. :

I've got about 1T of audio/music, alone (plus 1T to mirror that).
I can recover all of it from the original CD's (stored under the bed)
but it is a HUGE hassle to do so!

Disks are way too convenient. And, thankfully, cheap. If you aren't
looking for performance (access time), then even consumer grade stuff is
good enough.

Ironically, I haven't needed to restore anything from my backups since I
put the system in place many years ago.

I've used the "cold archive" approach virtually since the beginning.
Originally, I used SCSI disks that I kept piled on a shelf in the closet.
I would pull the drive of interest off the shelf, plug it into a
SCSI enclosure, spin the drive up and mount it (all of this can be done
without rebooting the computer -- much like you can with USB, now).
Then, pull the files I want from the drive. When done, power it down
and move it back onto the shelf.

I'd keep two copies of each drive -- same make/model. So, if something
happened to one copy, I could retrieve the desired information from the
second copy (hard to call one of them a "backup" as they are both
effectively "backups").

Some time in the 90's, I was using 4G drives for my archive. I'd bought
a couple dozen (significant investment, back then!) to try to consolidate
my archive onto fewer media.

One day, I went to pull some stuff off of a (cold) drive and the drive
"crashed" (still spinning, but totally corrupted). I wasn't keen at
the idea that I'd lost a $1K drive, but figured the data was the real
"value", there.

So, I pulled the second copy off the shelf and installed it, instead.
And it, too, died miserably! (WTF???)

[At that time, I wasn't in the habit of installing the write protect
jumpers on the drives!]

Long story short: a bug in the OS's SCSI disk driver was incompatible
with this particular make/model disk. I.e., it would "crash" EVERY
one of my drives, if I gave it the chance!

So, I backed out that most recent OS upgrade, reformatted the two "failed"
drives and rebuilt them from a copy I kept on MO media (I take the
integrity of my archive VERY seriously!)

Other than that fiasco, any other "losses" have been Operator Error.
Usually, typing on the wrong keyboard (sending the 'rm *' command to
the wrong computer). But, as I keep frequent updates (I push files
to one or more NAS's while I am working -- so I can undo changes
without having to deal with the VCS), I seldom lose much of anything
(other than my dignity).

Exactly. The flaw in most backup scenarios (and why I have the
"active scrubbing" mechanism outlined above). You *may* get an ECC
error ("read error") when you try to make that backup. But, the
"drive/transport/driver" usually won't let you see the raw,
"corrupted" data in those events! So, you can't even decide if
"everything looks intact except the name on the document is AnThony
instead of Anthony (single bit flip)!

Yep, it's extremely rare, but it has happened to me in the past.

I wish someone would make external WORM drives (write once, read many)
with decent capacity at an affordable price. Sandisk used to make 1GB USB
WORM drives but I don't think they're available anymore. 1GB is way too
small these days anyway. It wouldn't even hold a short HD video.

I have (small capacity) MO drives in the 600M-1G-4G capacity.
Some years ago, I stumbled on a cache of NOS 652MB IBM MO cartridges.
Cost me $7 for a lot of 200-300 of them. "Such a deal" :
Slow but a *backup* of an archive can be dog slow as it's rarely used!

At one time, I had a WORM drive that could handle laser video discs
(12" media). But, media was way too expensive (and the recorder was
essentially a piece of furniture!)

The M-Disc's are probably the closest to that idea, but they're expensive
and the 25GB capacity is still quite limited.

I use tape for "small-ish" backups -- ~40G on a cartridge. The advantage
they have is that I can remove them (to prevent me from overwriting) and
set them aside with a label. Too easy to lose track of which "folder"
holds which set of backup files on a large disk!

Yup. And CD/DVD/BRay/MO/tape/etc. are just as vulnerable to fire,
water damage, etc. OTOH, paper rarely suffers from a "bearing
failure"... :

That's why I keep a second backup in my safe deposit box. If I have a
major disaster at home, I'll still have the drive at the bank. If the
bank is destroyed, I still have my copies at home.

I live on a mountain, the bank is down in the valley. So the odds of us
suffering the same disaster are unlikely. If we're both hit, my computer
data is probably the least of my worries...

I gave all my clients advanced warning a few years ago that I wouldn't
be taking on new business. Implicit in that is "if you've got any
problems with any of my OLD business, speak now" (I guaranteed ongoing
free support for all my work). So, I will gradually be retiring those
portions of my archive that aren't of "personal value" and reclaiming
or repurposing the resources that were previously set aside for those
uses. (but, even THAT takes time/effort!)

(Do you have backups of the various *drives* that each of these media
require?)

Nope, but I have redundency. If one drive fails, I still have two other
copies to fall back on. Three if you count the Blu-Ray discs.

Sorry, I meant "backup BluRay drive, backup *tape* drive, etc." I.e.
whatever hardware is required to access the media on which your data
resides.

[I've used lots of different media over the years so have had lots
of different "drives" to address those media.]

I also migrate my backups to new drives as technology improves. Actually,
I usually upgrade to new drives long before they wear out because I need
more storage space.

Ditto. I've been opting for the cheap consumer drives in that regard.
Of course, if there's a manufacturing flaw, I can get screwed in a heartbeat
(as it would likely impact more than one instance of a particular product).

I choose which media in which I want to "invest" my IP. Certain things
are more precious than others -- and warrant more effort and resources.
(If I lost my music archive, I'd just shrug. OTOH, if I lost the sources
for my current project, I'd be pretty annoyed!)

frown Thankfully, I don't appear to have any similar problems.

I used to live on fried foods. Then my wife insisted I started eating
healthier. It took a while to adjust but now that's just our normal diet.
Now if I try to eat the foods I used to enjoy, they make me feel tired
and bloated.

Ah. SWMBO has a pretty rational diet. So, this keeps me from indulging
in past "bad practices". E.g., I used to just buy a beef tenderloin
and have the butcher cut it into steaks; then eat one each evening.
Yummy! But, apparently all that red meat is not a good thing :

["If it tastes good, spit it out!"]

She also insists on *balanced* meals. I.e., not JUST that piece of meat
(regardless of how large it is). So, unless we want to cook twice as many
meals each day, we have to come up with a compromise...

Unfortunately, I have *lots* of "seasonal allergies".

I am thankful I do not have any allergies. Every spring the pollen here
in the forest is so bad my black car turns a shade of green. It's a mess
to clean up, but I don't get so much as a sniffle.

Our vehicles are currently yellow if sitting outdoors for more than
a few hours. I can't do anything about what others have chosen to
plant. Nor the flora that is typical for this region (to much of which
I am seriously allergic).

And, unfortunately, many of the things we *want* in the yard (hummingbird
friendly, citrus, etc.) are also triggers for me. I lined the front entrance
with Texas Mountain Laurels:

http://www.moonvalleynurseries.com/application/files/cache/15a8aa0a4c264643cad1e5ec41433ef3.jpg
as they are drought tolerant, present an effective "privacy screen"
and are delightfully fragrant when in bloom (smells like Welch's grape
soda). But, enjoying their scent comes with a price tag... :

I find it invaluable for "lack of sleep" headaches.

With only rare exceptions, I have never had a problem sleeping either.
I'm out as soon as I hit the bed and easily sleep 8 hours without waking
up. I wake up refreshed and excited to start a new day.

My problem is GOING to bed and STAYING in bed. E.g., I went to bed
just before 6A this morning. And, was up at 8:30A. It's now 11P
and I'm just getting into my "stride"...

I guess I just consider sore muscles to be a natural consequence of
physical labor. Never thought of "taking" anything for them

Unfortunately, I've struggled with back pain most of my life. Sometimes
it gets so bad I have sharp painful spasms that drop me to the ground.
Extremely painful. I usually have to go to the doctor and take muscle
relaxers for a few days when it gets that bad.

I've got some back problems -- but no back *pain*. I'm very aware of
how I use my back lest I aggravate things. If I do, pain meds aren't
the answer! :

Don,

To each his own. SWMBO had something tied to one of the checking
accounts. Then, ended up with a hassle when she closed that account;
have to notify the vendor of new account, etc. Easier just to decide
how you're going to pay *when* you go to pay, IMO.

I encountered something like that when someone made unauthorized charges to
our credit card. I had to get a new card which meant updating all the
accounts that were tied to it. Yeah, it's a hassle, but it's a very rare
event. The convenience of not having to spend a lot of time and effort
paying bills each month is worth it.

I don't like flash drives because they hide information regarding
their operating state.

For backup purposes, flash drives cost way too much per gigabyte.

I just tossed a (practically new!) 32G drive

I have a drawer full of old flash drives that I've probably used less than
5-10 times each. We upgrade to new drives with more capacity long before we
wear them out. I have a 256MB and a 512MB drive on my desk now, basically
useless these days, but I don't know what to do with them.

I also have a stack of 8GB SD cards on my desk from our digital cameras. We
upgraded to 16GB or 32GB cards for the camera and camcorder, so now I've
got a bunch of empty cards sitting around.

Obviously, I've got a lot more "data" in my archive. :
I've got about 1T of audio/music, alone

Sheesh, I only have about 100GB on my C: boot drive, a bit over 500GB on my
D: data drive, and roughly 100GB on my daughters computer.

Sorry, I meant "backup BluRay drive, backup *tape* drive, etc." I.e.
whatever hardware is required to access the media on which your data
resides.

Oh, nope, I don't have a backup Blu-Ray drive, but they're still widely
available at this point. I don't really rely on the blu-ray backups to be
readable anyway, they're just one more layer of protection. My main drive
and both external backup drives would have to fail before I need the blu-
ray backup.

apparently all that red meat is not a good thing

I can relate. My parents used to buy a full side of beef and keep it in the
freezer. Almost every meal was a steak, hamburger, etc.

Now I only eat beef once a week or less.

My problem is GOING to bed and STAYING in bed. E.g., I went to bed
just before 6A this morning. And, was up at 8:30A. It's now 11P
and I'm just getting into my "stride"...

I was a night owl when I was a teenager, but now we're usually in bed by
9:30pm and up by 5:30am.

I've got some back problems -- but no back *pain*. I'm very aware of
how I use my back lest I aggravate things.

My build causes a lot of my problems, since my back arches more than most.
Makes me look stupid when I walk too.

But, I usually don't realize I've overworked my back until it's too late. I
get focused on whatever task I'm working on, and end up paying for it
later.

Of course, the older I get, the more out of shape I get, and the easier it
is to overwork my muscles. I still try to act like I'm 30 but my body soon
reminds me I'm over 50.

Anthony Watson
www.watsondiy.com
www.mountainsoftware.com

On Thu, 5 May 2016 14:25:07 -0000 (UTC), HerHusband
wrote:

I have a drawer full of old flash drives that I've probably used less than
5-10 times each. We upgrade to new drives with more capacity long before we
wear them out. I have a 256MB and a 512MB drive on my desk now, basically
useless these days, but I don't know what to do with them.


Put them in the round file.
I have some flash drives for bootable media, but they are 16gb.
They've only been written to once or twice, but one of them stays in
its slot, and it's been read perhaps a hundred times.
The only reason I have them is they are faster than the CD/DVD.
And they're convenient.

Hi Anthony,

On 5/5/2016 7:25 AM, HerHusband wrote:
To each his own. SWMBO had something tied to one of the checking
accounts. Then, ended up with a hassle when she closed that account;
have to notify the vendor of new account, etc. Easier just to decide
how you're going to pay *when* you go to pay, IMO.

I encountered something like that when someone made unauthorized charges to
our credit card. I had to get a new card which meant updating all the
accounts that were tied to it. Yeah, it's a hassle, but it's a very rare
event. The convenience of not having to spend a lot of time and effort
paying bills each month is worth it.

SWMBO is *really* obsessive about tracking expenses. She logs all
of them in a database she built so she knows what each credit card
bill will be before it arrives. At least once a month, I'll get
grilled over some "missing receipt": "Do you think you spent $37.23
at Home Depot on the 15th?"

This, of course, is code for: "What the hell did you buy for $37.23
at Home Depot and why didn't you give me the receipt??!"

I don't like flash drives because they hide information regarding
their operating state.

For backup purposes, flash drives cost way too much per gigabyte.

We only use the one as a "backup" in our bug-out-bag (for our most
recent financial data). Whatever you use for that purpose has
to be easily updated, accessible from a variety of other computers
and reasonably durable (as you won't be "babying it" if you need to
"bug out")

I just tossed a (practically new!) 32G drive

I have a drawer full of old flash drives that I've probably used less than
5-10 times each. We upgrade to new drives with more capacity long before we
wear them out. I have a 256MB and a 512MB drive on my desk now, basically
useless these days, but I don't know what to do with them.

I save small ones (512-8G) for bootable media. I.e., I have clonezilla
on one (512MB being *roughly* the size of a CD-ROM so any "live CD"
is a potential candidate to move onto a small thumb drive). I also
have little "utility CD's" (that are, in fact "utility thumb drives")
for things like resetting Windows passwords, etc. I have OPHCRACK
installed on some of the larger ones (with the "enlarged" rainbow tables).

None of these are uses that would justify *buying* a thumb drive;
a CD/DVD is more economical. But, the thumb drives are more resilient
than optical media and, "no longer of use, anyway..."

I also have a stack of 8GB SD cards on my desk from our digital cameras. We
upgraded to 16GB or 32GB cards for the camera and camcorder, so now I've
got a bunch of empty cards sitting around.

I typically use my camera to document some *thing*. Then, quickly
pull those images off the camera (memory card). So, any card that
I use is usually blank -- and more than capable of holding the
next batch of photos "documenting something".

SWMBO is more the typical photographer -- taking countless photos
until the card fills; then, spending hours trying to sort the
photos as she moves them onto her photo archive.

(the idea of yet another "organizing chore" is enough to turn me off
to that! Hard enough keeping my desk, bookshelves, desktop, etc.
organized without adding to the list)

Obviously, I've got a lot more "data" in my archive. :
I've got about 1T of audio/music, alone

Sheesh, I only have about 100GB on my C: boot drive, a bit over 500GB on my
D: data drive, and roughly 100GB on my daughters computer.

Music is "unfortunate". I could live with the original CD's -- but
they are a hassle to access (and must be played on a CD drive).
Hence, the appeal of the disc storage and the effort to rip them.
But, I also need them in a different/special format for my "network
speakers" as decoding MP3's each time you want to listen to something
is a silly waste of resources (time/memory). And, would also require
*encoding* all audio into that format in order to have the speakers
capable of reproducing the audio (e.g., VoIP, movie "simulcasts",
front door intercom, etc.).

Sorry, I meant "backup BluRay drive, backup *tape* drive, etc." I.e.
whatever hardware is required to access the media on which your data
resides.

Oh, nope, I don't have a backup Blu-Ray drive, but they're still widely
available at this point. I don't really rely on the blu-ray backups to be
readable anyway, they're just one more layer of protection. My main drive
and both external backup drives would have to fail before I need the blu-
ray backup.

Yes. I was mentioning it as I have used many different media types
over the years (including 9T tape; having a spare transport was
a HUGE space consideration! : ). It's not enough for me to
have *a* way of accessing the media but also need a BACKUP way
as well! (e.g., my MO drives)

apparently all that red meat is not a good thing

I can relate. My parents used to buy a full side of beef and keep it in the
freezer. Almost every meal was a steak, hamburger, etc.

Now I only eat beef once a week or less.

SWMBO is not fond of beef (understatement). So, any that comes into
the house is intended for my own consumption. E.g., 6 lbs of ground
beef yesterday will go into the batch of sauce I'm making this afternoon
(with some made into burger patties to be frozen).

I'm excited in that I've managed to add beef w/broccoli to our weekly
menu. And, I make a big enough batch that I get an extra meal out
of it! (on the agenda for tonight)

OTOH, I will counter with something like braised asparagus and linguine
agli e olio (not fond of pasta w/o red sauce!) -- on the agenda for
TOMORROW night (maybe *I* can eat a hamburg?? : )

My problem is GOING to bed and STAYING in bed. E.g., I went to bed
just before 6A this morning. And, was up at 8:30A. It's now 11P
and I'm just getting into my "stride"...

I was a night owl when I was a teenager, but now we're usually in bed by
9:30pm and up by 5:30am.

I've never been a lark. When I was younger, I was involved in a
research project that tried to monitor biological rhythms (in this
case, circadian rhythms). For months (and eventually, years), I
carried a doctor's sachel around with sphygmomanometer (blood pressure),
peak expiratory flow meter (lung capacity), dynamometer (hand strength),
thermometer (body temperature), etc. I would sit down periodically
and run through a battery of tests on myself: the above plus things
like how quickly I could add (and record) 100 pairs of single digit numbers,
digital dexterity, etc.

In my initial exposure, this went on for several months before the data
was "processed" -- trying to fit a curve to the data. From the *data*,
the result came back suggesting my *body* was operating at its best
in the evening -- specifically, around 6P. Despite the fact that it
was being forced onto the normal schedule of a child. This coincided
with what I knew personally to be true of my own physiology.

Of course, its possible that this has changed over the decades. But,
I still "feel" like I am more productive later in the day. E.g., I won't
be hungry for many hours after rising. And, left to my own devices,
end up inverting my sleep-wake cycle (e.g., to bed at 6:30 this
morning, up at 10:00 -- did I mention lack of sleep? : )

I've got some back problems -- but no back *pain*. I'm very aware of
how I use my back lest I aggravate things.

My build causes a lot of my problems, since my back arches more than most.
Makes me look stupid when I walk too.

Don't let your knuckles drag on the ground!!

But, I usually don't realize I've overworked my back until it's too late. I
get focused on whatever task I'm working on, and end up paying for it
later.

I guess I've been relatively lucky. My arms will get tired from too much
lifting. But, I can't recall ever having a sore back -- despite all
the digging I've done over the years.

Of course, the older I get, the more out of shape I get, and the easier it
is to overwork my muscles. I still try to act like I'm 30 but my body soon
reminds me I'm over 50.

Yeah, I keep wondering who that old man is that I keep meeting in the
bathroom! He never gives me any PRIVACY...

On Thursday, May 5, 2016 at 2:34:57 PM UTC-4, Don Y wrote:

SWMBO is *really* obsessive about tracking expenses. She logs all
of them in a database she built so she knows what each credit card
bill will be before it arrives. At least once a month, I'll get
grilled over some "missing receipt": "Do you think you spent $37.23
at Home Depot on the 15th?"

She needs a job. I'm far too busy to spend time on stuff like that.
Forty hours a week at work, then weekends helping with home maintenance
and improvement leaves me little time for bothering my husband about
such things.

Of course, I generally use or see him using whatever the $37.23 bought
at Home Depot.

Cindy Hamilton

On 5/5/2016 11:47 AM, Cindy Hamilton wrote:
On Thursday, May 5, 2016 at 2:34:57 PM UTC-4, Don Y wrote:

SWMBO is *really* obsessive about tracking expenses. She logs all
of them in a database she built so she knows what each credit card
bill will be before it arrives. At least once a month, I'll get
grilled over some "missing receipt": "Do you think you spent $37.23
at Home Depot on the 15th?"

She needs a job.

She tracked construction expenses for a large business in her day job.
So, keeping track of where money goes is natural to her.

I'm far too busy to spend time on stuff like that.

In our case, it pays off. We *know* where we spend our money.
It's not a mystery like it is to most folks ("Gee, I just don't know
where the money goes...!")

It's also handy to be able to know how prices are changing: "I don't
recall paying this much for roof paint LAST year..." "We didn't.
Last year that same bucket cost us just $X!"

We purchased something yesterday. "Oh, the price has gone up! It
was two dollars less, last time!" "Yeah, but that was a year ago!"
"So, 10% in a year?" (oops! wanna bet anyone else buying the same
product was clueless as to the 10% price increase?)

Forty hours a week at work, then weekends helping with home maintenance
and improvement leaves me little time for bothering my husband about
such things.

I don't see it as "bothering". She's providing a useful service -- one
that I'd not be eager to take on. The insights from her record keeping
often lead us to changing vendors for products/services -- because we
KNOW what's been happening to prices (instead of just relying on hunches).

Do you KNOW what it costs you to operate your vehicles? Home upkeep?
Feed your family? Maintain your health?

Or, do you just "have a feel" for those costs?

Of course, I generally use or see him using whatever the $37.23 bought
at Home Depot.

Would you know that *it* was the $37.23 purchase? And, not the $10 purchase?
Should you *have* to be involved in all of his activities in order to vouch
for same?

On 5/5/2016 2:47 PM, Cindy Hamilton wrote:
On Thursday, May 5, 2016 at 2:34:57 PM UTC-4, Don Y wrote:

SWMBO is *really* obsessive about tracking expenses. She logs all
of them in a database she built so she knows what each credit card
bill will be before it arrives. At least once a month, I'll get
grilled over some "missing receipt": "Do you think you spent $37.23
at Home Depot on the 15th?"

She needs a job. I'm far too busy to spend time on stuff like that.
Forty hours a week at work, then weekends helping with home maintenance
and improvement leaves me little time for bothering my husband about
such things.

Of course, I generally use or see him using whatever the $37.23 bought
at Home Depot.

Cindy Hamilton


I find it is easier to use cash under $100 and not have to check charges
on a CC or bank statement. I used to use my debit card a lot and have
to go through the statement to be sure it balances. Far shorter now.

On Thu, 05 May 2016 11:34:15 -0700, Don Y
wrote:

SWMBO is *really* obsessive about tracking expenses. She logs all
of them in a database she built so she knows what each credit card
bill will be before it arrives. At least once a month, I'll get
grilled over some "missing receipt": "Do you think you spent $37.23
at Home Depot on the 15th?"

Thirty years of marriage hasn't changed me, despite her valiant
efforts. If she needs a receipt for something important, I turn it
over.

If it went through a wash cycle, not much chance in it being legible.
In her defense, how many pennies or $37 deductions need attention...

It's a constant thing :-)

On Thursday, May 5, 2016 at 3:07:59 PM UTC-4, Don Y wrote:

Do you KNOW what it costs you to operate your vehicles? Home upkeep?
Feed your family? Maintain your health?

Not a damned clue. Less than our disposable income, certainly.

Especially "maintain your health". My husband has multiple
prescriptions and frequent doctor visits. All of that is
entirely his affair, and I don't even look at the bills, even
though they're paid out of our joint account.

Shoot, I don't even keep a check register. I look at the monthly
statement online, to see if anything looks suspicious. I assume
their computer can do the arithmetic. It's what they're good at.

Of course, I generally use or see him using whatever the $37.23 bought
at Home Depot.

Would you know that *it* was the $37.23 purchase? And, not the $10 purchase?
Should you *have* to be involved in all of his activities in order to vouch
for same?

I don't *have* to be involved; I want to be involved. If I didn't see
the $37.23 thingy in use, I'd never even think about the $37.23.

Multiple charges at Home Depot are how we know it's spring.

Cindy Hamilton

On 5/5/2016 1:07 PM, Cindy Hamilton wrote:
On Thursday, May 5, 2016 at 3:07:59 PM UTC-4, Don Y wrote:

Do you KNOW what it costs you to operate your vehicles? Home upkeep?
Feed your family? Maintain your health?

Not a damned clue. Less than our disposable income, certainly.

Especially "maintain your health". My husband has multiple
prescriptions and frequent doctor visits. All of that is
entirely his affair, and I don't even look at the bills, even
though they're paid out of our joint account.

Does he know when the prices of his meds are changing? Or,
simply pay whatever the pharmacist tells him is "due"? How does
he know when to start shopping for another pharmacy? Or, when
to bring up alternative treatments with his MD?

Part of knowing is having data that you can consult. I no longer
want to bother trying to REMEMBER what I paid for some item last
week -- or last month/year.

Shoot, I don't even keep a check register. I look at the monthly
statement online, to see if anything looks suspicious. I assume
their computer can do the arithmetic. It's what they're good at.

Computers are best at *remembering*! Save me the hassle of adding up
a column of 4 or 5 digit numbers, once a month? Pfah. Save me the
trouble of REMEMBERING those numbers and you've earned your keep!

As I run a business, I am keen on where the money goes -- and being
able to document that to the tax man, clients, etc. "Gee, I forgot
to bill that client for these supplies that I purchased on his
behalf. frown I guess I'll just have to treat them as a *gift*
for said client as the contract is now closed double frown"

Of course, I generally use or see him using whatever the $37.23 bought
at Home Depot.

Would you know that *it* was the $37.23 purchase? And, not the $10 purchase?
Should you *have* to be involved in all of his activities in order to vouch
for same?

I don't *have* to be involved; I want to be involved. If I didn't see
the $37.23 thingy in use, I'd never even think about the $37.23.

We are very concerned with where our monies go. We never "buy on time"
(finance), carry balances, etc. Because we KNOW that we will have what
we need available when we need it.

"How will you be paying for this (car, washing machine, 2000 sq ft of tile,
20 tons of stone, medical bill, etc)?"

"Cash. (or check/charge -- same difference)"

We don't get surprised when a bank or credit card statement shows up
weeks later. And, don't prematurely reinvest monies that we'll be needing
for a big ticket purchase next month, etc.

Multiple charges at Home Depot are how we know it's spring.

On 5/5/2016 12:11 PM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
I find it is easier to use cash under $100 and not have to check charges on a
CC or bank statement. I used to use my debit card a lot and have to go through
the statement to be sure it balances. Far shorter now.

When I was younger, I paid cash for everything -- even my tuition at school!
But, I operated on a simpler money management scheme: "If I don't have the
cash WITH me, IN MY POCKET, RIGHT NOW, then I don't *need* whatever it is!"

And, as my "needs" are modest (even moreso, now), it was relatively easy to
decide that I'd have to go home to eat instead of picking up some fast food,
etc. Most days I leave the house with a few singles in my wallet. The
things that I am likely to NEED (that can't be deferred) are *gasoline*.
I don't NEED a can of soda, a greasy burger, a new pair of shoes, etc.
(If I WANT any of those things, then I'll plan for them!)

That's different when you're sharing accounts with another and have more
monies tied up in investments than liquid assets (which is far more common
than when younger). It's annoying to have to transfer ADDITIONAL funds simply
because you failed to SHARE the fact taht you were planning on spending
$500 for a CLASS this Spring while your counterpart was planning on
spending a similar amount on SUPPLIES. I.e., if we're going to need
$1000 for "extraordinary expenses", then lets arrange to have that
$1000 available instead of just the $500 you (or I) planned on.

On 5/5/2016 4:55 PM, Don Y wrote:

That's different when you're sharing accounts with another and have more
monies tied up in investments than liquid assets (which is far more common
than when younger). It's annoying to have to transfer ADDITIONAL funds
simply
because you failed to SHARE the fact taht you were planning on spending
$500 for a CLASS this Spring while your counterpart was planning on
spending a similar amount on SUPPLIES. I.e., if we're going to need
$1000 for "extraordinary expenses", then lets arrange to have that
$1000 available instead of just the $500 you (or I) planned on.

Not a problem for us, my wife carries no more that $20 on her and does
not go anyplace on her own any more. She has me take her where she
wants to go and has me pay for it. Easy to track expenses and she has no
stress from it. Works for us.

On 5/5/2016 6:15 PM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
On 5/5/2016 4:55 PM, Don Y wrote:

That's different when you're sharing accounts with another and have more
monies tied up in investments than liquid assets (which is far more common
than when younger). It's annoying to have to transfer ADDITIONAL funds
simply
because you failed to SHARE the fact taht you were planning on spending
$500 for a CLASS this Spring while your counterpart was planning on
spending a similar amount on SUPPLIES. I.e., if we're going to need
$1000 for "extraordinary expenses", then lets arrange to have that
$1000 available instead of just the $500 you (or I) planned on.

Not a problem for us, my wife carries no more that $20 on her and does not go
anyplace on her own any more. She has me take her where she wants to go and
has me pay for it. Easy to track expenses and she has no stress from it. Works
for us.

Our daily activities are largely independent. We each "do our own thing"
and meet back here later in the day. Sometimes, joint appearances are
necessary (usually at some function/fundraiser that SWMBO is interested in).

She doesn't concern herself with my projects, home maintenance, the cars,
etc. and I don't worry about what she's spending on her "hobbies" or lunch
dates with her friends, etc. She's more likely to grill me about whether
I have *any* money in my wallet -- esp if she knows I'm headed someplace
where I will likely *need* it!

(some places that I frequent will only accept cash; others will NOT accept
cash and insist on checks; still others will take anything)

So, we long ago learned to clue each other in on upcoming expenditures
(beyond the piddling expenses). E.g., I'll soon be painting the roof so
she should expect me to be shelling out a lot of money for paint. And,
I want to put some siding on the back porch so that will be a kilobuck or
so...