Tap Water: To Drink or Not to Drink?

Our recent DC Tap Water report revealed that tap water samples in the Washington, DC area contained toxic chlorination by-products at levels above federal health limits.

An average reader might read that and run to the local Safeway or Piggly Wiggly to stock up on bottled water. But you're smarter than that.

You probably even already know there's a cheaper, more environmentally-friendly way to dramatically lower levels of these toxic byproducts: carbon filtration. In fact, it's 10 to 20 times less expensive than bottled water ($100 vs. nearly $2,000 annually) AND it doesn't produce the waste and pollution bottled water does. Carbon filtration could be a countertop pitcher, a faucet-mount, an under-sink model, or a whole-house model.
So make the smart choice: pass up bottled water.

Get a carbon filter instead.

To read the whole article: http://www.ewg.org/reports/dctapwater

heading for the hill country

Don't count on a blog entry for a few days, I'm taking holiday in Wimberley, Texas. I'll be spending the weekend at Camp Young Judaea with Eric. We really love going there as "camp guests". If only the hill country rain would stop!!! Camp has an olympic size pool, designed by Schlitterbaum. You can only imagine how great it is, with 2 waterslides, a mushroom waterfall, and a shallow sitting area. So if you happen to watch the weather channel and see me floating down the Guadalupe River, I'll be waving.

clowning around

Last week, eddie and I went to clown for the camp at my school (Torah Day School). Eddie usually does the balloon animals, and this time, he only decided to make one animal. Since our house had been packed up for the move since November, our balloons had been in the garage. That's a big no no, the heat ruins the balloons. Well, every time he blew up the balloon, it would pop. The kids thought it was so funny, it looked like it was part of the act. Finally, he was able to make a little doggie with a leash. The kids loved it.

pictures plus

For the past several weeks, I have been working on a mosaic piece for an entrance to a friend's new store. (Pictures Plus). Finally yesterday, I was able to deliver it. My friend, Dennis, was very happy with it, and I was even happier that he liked it. It's hard to design something for someone else, especially someone with an eye for design and art. He just told me to do whatever I thought would look good. Now I know what all of you are thinking, no I will not do one for your house!!! This took over 40 hrs work. I wanted to do this for Dennis ( and Mike) because they both have been such a big help to me with my new house. Eddie and I could not have done this remodel without his imput and ideas. Dennis is an irreplaceable friend, one of my best friends, and he holds a very special place in my heart.

The crowd over 30

Subject: THE SPOILED UNDER-30 CROWD!!!

If you are over thirty you can appreciate this!

THE SPOILED UNDER-30 CROWD!!!

If you are 30 or older you will think this is hilarious!!!!

When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were when they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning ... uphill BOTH ways ..

yadda, yadda, yadda

And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it!

But now that... I'm over the ripe old age of thirty, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today. You've got it so easy!

I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a damn Utopia!

And I hate to say it but you kids today you don't know how good you've got it!

I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have The Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the damn library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalog!!

There was no email! ! We had to actually write somebody a letter ... with a pen! Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox and it would take like a week to get there!

There were no MP3's or Napsters! You wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the damn record store and shoplift it yourself!

Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ'd usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up!

We didn't have fancy crap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called they got a busy signal, that's it!

And we didn't have fancy Caller ID Boxes either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your mom, your boss, your bookie, your drug dealer, a collections agent, you just didn't know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

We didn't have any fancy Sony Playstation video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like "Space Invaders" and "asteroids" and the graphics sucked ass! Your guy was a little square! You actually had to use your imagination! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen forever! And you could never win. The game
just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died! . Just like LIFE!

When you went to the movie theater there no such thing as stadium seating!

All the seats were the same height! If a tall guy or some old broad with a hat sat in front of you and you couldn't see, you were just screwed!

Sure, we had cable television, but back then that was only like 15 channels and there was no onscreen menu and no remote control! You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on!

You were screwed when it came to channel surfing! You had to get off your ass and walk over to the TV to change the channel and there was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning. Do you hear what I'm saying!?! We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled little rat-*******s!

And we didn't have microwaves, if we wanted to heat something up . we had to use the stove or go build a frigging fire ... imagine that! If we wanted popcorn, we had to use that stupid Jiffy Pop thing and shake it over the stove forever like an idiot.

That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy.

You're spoiled.

You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1980!

Regards,

The over 30 Crowd

Dog-e-video

When we were little, we imagined that our dogs could talk to us. Now that dream is a reality.

Today's Dog-e-Video:
/www.spoilspot.com/player.aspx?ss=13

yoga

Is this yoga....I hope not!


Tonight I went to my first yoga class. I was surprised at how much I was able to do and to keep up with the instructor. Luckily, I have always stretched and stretched more. I'm also very fortunate to be very flexible. All that stretching paid off in the class tonight. So now, yoga is my exercise of choice. It was just so perfect for me. Now I understand why so many of my friends are "into yoga". I just loved it!