Monthly Archives: January 2011

Physical Therapy Software And Me

When I was thirteen, my school nurse discovered that I had scoliosis. I had been complaining about back pain for years, but my parents dismissed it as ‘growing pains’ but what they didn’t know is, my road to recovery would have been a lot easier if it had been caught sooner. After a phone call to my parents and a doctor visit later, they theorized that due to my childhood malnutrition and genetics I may have grown too fast for my muscles to handle and so they pulled my spine to one side, off balance.

If it would have been caught when I was young, physical therapy would have been the easy method to help hold my spine in place while I grew but instead I now have a longer, more difficult road with more consequences if it continues to be ignored. After a few years of chiropractor after chiropractor I found one that used physical therapy software. With it he explained how much easier it was to keep track of payments and progress.

He used this little machine that could electronically track each vertebrae of my spine, it’s position and angle. With this he could better decide how to treat me without hurting my fragile nerves that are abnormally close to the skin because of the movement. It’s only been two years of treatment but with his physical therapy software it is looking like I will be able to avoid the wheelchair as an adult!

Professional Knife Sharpeners

I am not a huge fan of knives. Unless they are kitchen knives, then I am a fan. Mostly I use knives when I cut fruit like watermelon or cantaloupe, apples or peaches. Even though I am not a chef, I still like to have nice knives in my kitchen. Sure, I use a knive every week or so, I don’t like to have dull knives laying around, waiting for someone to get cut. I value a really good knife, and I think we all should. Growing up my family had pretty nice knives, so you could say that I have become a little bit spoiled with my kitchen utensils.

But I have learned that just about any knife can be a great knife (notice I said just about any, because there are some knives that really are hopeless) as long as you have a few great professional knife sharpeners. Seriously, professional knife sharpeners are the key to success here. My uncle is a chef, and he agrees with me. A dull knife equals a dull meal. Everything tastes better when it has been cut with a sharp knife. Trust me on this, go to your nearest restaurant and ask them to do an experiment for you, you’ll see.

Scanning Services and Documenting Childhood

One of my favorite innovations in technology is document scanning services. With the technology we have now, we can scan everything from old newspaper articles to family photos and stories. With scanning services, we can share pictures of great grandpa fishing at the cabin when he was a kid, and we don’t have to damage the original photo. One time my high school marched in the Macy’s parade in New York, and there were stories printed in the local and state newspapers. Thanks to scanning services, I have record of that day and the newspaper articles even if I lose the original copies.

Possibly the best thing to scan is photos. Now that we live in a time of digital photography and camera phones and photo software, everything about owning and taking photos has changed. We are now lucky enough to just download pictures and have copies of them for everyone to see. But what about old photos? When I was a kid, there wasn’t such thing as a memory card or a digital camera, so all of my childhood photos were on developed film and are now sitting in boxes and photo albums in my parents’ basement. One of these days I want to scan them so I have a digital copy of all of them.

Summer Sprinkler Systems Fun

I am from a part of the country where most people don’t have sprinkler systems. It rains enough during the year that we don’t have to worry about keeping our lawns irrigated with sprinkler systems and when it stops raining, we are happy because that means that the grass will die and then we won’t have to mow it anymore! Now that I think about it, though, I think that was just my family. I think that there might have been a couple of people in our neighborhood that had sprinkler systems, they just didn’t have to use them very much.

We did, however, have a sprinkler. My mom would use it to water the garden sometimes, but more than anything, it was utilized by us kids, who would often need some cool liquid refreshment on hot days. We would put on our swimsuits, pull out the sprinkler and let the water flow. We would run quickly through the water at first; it was always too cold to handle initially. But soon thereafter we would be splashing in it. Those are good memories. I miss those days. Someday I will have children of my own to let dance in the sprinkler system.

Magnum Inverter

So, I’m just sitting here in a chair next to a window, typing. It’s a little hot in here. You know why? There’s this thing called the sun that starts throwing energy my way through this same window at about this same time every day. This energy hits my body and turns into heat. My body stores some of this heat, which makes me feel excessively hot. I’m already warm enough, so all of this excess energy that the sun is kind enough to throw my way is essentially wasted. We actually have to spend even more energy to turn on the air conditioner to try to counter the effects of the sun’s generous contribution to my work area.

Turns out that the sun does this all over the place on a daily basis. Despite this fact, most people shell out tons of cash to buy electricity from the power company. When I get a house, I’m not going to pay the power company. I’m going to get a nice magnum inverter and some good solar panels. You know what a magnum inverter and some solar panels like to do for fun when they get together? They like to take care of your power bill for you. Sounds like a winning combination to me.

Birthday Greeting Card Assortment

Everyone loves stores like Costco because they can buy things in bulk for much cheaper. From a birthday greeting card assortment to boxes of 100 eggs to gigantic packages of dog food, you can find essentially everything there. It is useful to buy 200 bags of chips at time if you own a convenience store, but what if it’s just me? I don’t think I have use for a birthday greeting card assortment because I don’t send a whole lot of cards to begin with. So what would work in bulk for me?

I would like to buy cough drops in bulk, because when I am sick I tend to go through bags and bags of them. When I am sick for several days at a time and a bag typically costs three to five dollars, that can really add up. I would also like to buy a few food items in bulk, like frozen fish fillets and cheese. Both of those things can be really expensive if you buy them at a normal grocery store, which I do because I don’t have a membership card to a store like Costco. Other than those though, I can’t think of many other things I would want to spend money on.

Benchmade Nimravus

If you like knives you almost inevitably know what someone is talking about if they told you they were given a knife with a butterfly on it. Benchmade has been a notoriously well made tool for decades know and I expect will continue to be so for some time.

In the world of knives one of the main features is if it is a fixed blade or if it locks. Fixed blades have some obvious advantages in terms of strength and continuity, while lock blades have great portable functionality. The Benchmade Nimravus is a very good fixed blade knife and is something that you can expect to have for years to come.

For me, the advantage of a fixed blade, particularly one as well made as the Benchmade Nimravus line, is that you can do just about anything to it and not worry about it holding up. That is the great thing about fixed blades, there is nothing to go wrong. Assuming the metal is well made everything else is kind of a non-worry.

So if you are looking for a knife to go the distance, and one that you can trust, a Benchmade fixed blade may be just what you’re looking for.

Law Enforcement Needs Good Scanning Services

As a law enforcement officer, there are many cases where good scanning services are necessary not only for office work, but fieldwork as well. When it comes to police work, there is much paper work that has to be filled out on a regular basis and not only filed, but electronically recorded for easy access in the future if the case continues to be investigated. This requires good document scanning skills just in order to make sure the documents and records end up in the correct place. Additionally, they have to be able to look at these records and complete proper scanning services in order to internalize the details of the case well enough to be able to talk with witnesses or relate pertinent information.

These are only the in office applications though, there are many scanning services that are necessary in the field as well. If a police officer is protecting a witness or guarding someone, they have to be able to detect anomalies in the field in an instant. It works in reverse when they are tailing or following someone as well. Though it may seem like these are in office skills, they are used just as much in the field.