Karin's Adventures

I buy lots of things online. Amazon, ebay, websites all over the world...... because it's convenient, and sometimes the only way to get what I want.

On April 30th I ordered a small piece of hardware for my accordion from a shop in Germany. They notified me of the item being shipped on May 5th.

On May 9th I ordered a box of Haribo "Color-Rado" of Amazon, unaware of the fact that the seller, a "German-Store US", was going to send the item directly from Germany. Amazon notified me of the item being shipped on May 11th - along with two other items I had ordered on Amazon's website that same day.

When I found a FedEx tag on my door on Wednesday, May 13th, I was pretty sure that would be my accordion hardware. I signed the sticker and placed it back on the door to authorize FedEx to just leave it there the next day.

Thursday, May 14th, I came home and found three packages at my doorstep. All the items I had ordered on May 9th from Amazon arrived at the same day, via three different carriers from three different vendors. My accordion hardware was nowhere to be found.

Since the expected accordion hardware was missing, I opened a case with FedEx to investigate, maybe get a refund. They were going to follow up with me today.

That won't be necessary, though. We needed a small box and went through the recycle bin in the morning. The box that my Haribo candy came in was the right size - and it still had the packing slip on it..... shipped via FedEx, directly from Germany, the door-tag number matched.

Now that was lightning-fast shipping! From Germany to my door within three days!? Signature required for a box of candy?!

Hopefully my accordion hardware will be in that envelop I'm supposed to go pick up at the post office today.  

Really, what are they thinking? I don't consider myself a Republican. Actually, I am not a Democrat either. This kind of "either-or" categories is inadequate to describe my political views. I may be a green liberal conservative socialist.

Today I received this solicitation in the mail, which made me laugh - just a day late to be an April Fool's joke. The Republican National Committee wants me to "renew" my "membership" with them immediately, if not sooner.

They sound really urgent, since we only have 20 months left until the next presidential election. What I didn't quite understand, though, was how I could "renew" a membership that I never had?  

In the light of our recent city water odor episode the discussion about "good" or "bad" reverse osmosis filtered water called for renewed investigation. I've heard both sides of the arguments, but maybe there are new, more recent, studies? Maybe common sense, and my own judgement, can now be proven, or disproven?

Here's what I found, or should I say confirmed, for myself:

Reverse osmosis is the only purification system that can remove the majority of dangerous chemicals and pollutants from our drinking water. Reverse osmosis also removes contaminants that countertop and faucet carbon filters cannot including viruses, bacteria, pesticides, arsenic, fluoride, drugs, cryptosporidium, mercury, nitrates, microbes, heavy metals, all radioactive materials, and many more.

The lack of minerals in your water should not keep you up at night. The increasing amounts of chemicals, drugs and carcinogenic/radioactive materials potentially found in tap water should!

Your calcium, magnesium, and other minerals should come from a healthy, balanced, clean nutritious diet - not from your water. The main concern with water should be over toxicity, not mineral content. Whether water contains 1 or 100ppm (parts per million) calcium doesn't really matter, but the difference between 1 and 100ppm arsenic is of grave importance.

For the past four days our tap water has had an awful, foul, chemical smell to it. It makes me gag when I take a shower.

City officials were quick to tell us that this has a natural reason - it's because of the melting snow. Strange, though, that we've had melting snow every year, but this is the first time I have experienced that kind of a horrific stench coming from the faucets.

City officials also told us, that the odor would dissipate on its own soon. So, hang in there people - just hold your breath when you shower.

In the meantime the mayor and some of his friends and coworkers also appeared on TV, sipping water out of tiny glasses. They were saying that, despite the horrible smell, our tap water was safe to drink.

I believe these are the same kind of people, who are telling us that it is safe to drink a carbonated mix of high-fructose corn syrup, brominated vegetable oil, and yellow 5, out of an aluminum can.

Good thing that we have a reverse osmosis filtration system under our kitchen sink!

In September 2009 I bought this cute little Samsung N140 10" netbook to facilitate my academic endeavors. It featured Windows XP and a German keyboard. Last year, when Microsoft stopped supporting XP, I reluctantly put the poor little thing away, only using it once in a while, for fear of virus attacks.

Even though I now have a Surface Pro 2, and like that a lot, I still felt there was more life left in the netbook. So I bought a 2GB memory chip for $22, and a full version of Windows 7 Professional 32-bit edition for $73, on eBay. I spent the weekend refurbishing my old friend.

After 189 updates, installation of MS Office 2010, Visio 2010, AVG, Zonealarm, Superantispyware, Malwarebytes, Skype, VoipConnect, a VPN client, my favorite Skat game, three Auslogics utilities, the Live Movie Maker, Audacity, C-Cleaner, VLC Player, Firefox, Chrome.... and another round of 72 updates..... my little old netbook is good to go for at least six more years.