Generalismo

Baclava? Bakklava? I’m telling you, I got a lot of hits for those search terms at my old blog! I also got quite a few for gunshotwound (one word), which is GSW in abbreviation. And by the way, I made baklava today and it looks great! Smells great too. Taste? Well, I haven’t tasted it yet. But let me encourage you, if you have never made this before, to try your hand at it. It’s not hard at all if you have reasonably fresh phylo dough that doesn’t fall apart (before the expiration date). Ok…on from the mildly useless information to the definitely useless information.

I got up at 5:30am this morning to get a workout in before we went to help someone move. It wasn’t so bad, and I think I might keep that time. I spent too much time online at night (and doing nothing) and if I’m not up at 10pm, I can’t be online! If you live in a cold climate and don’t keep the heat turned up to comfortable summerlike temps, definitely consider getting a small coffee pot to put in your room (if you hang out upstairs for a while before breakfast.) Keep teabags on hand and make a pot of tea first thing in the morning. It really warms you up! I often drink two 4-cup pots of tea along with a cup or two of coffee. Great stuff in the morning!

Mini rant here. Why don’t Christians have more kids? Why are kids considered such a bad thing? Why are we letting other people outbreed us? Start having kids folks, you’re going to go extinct! I heard that Russians were giving folks a holiday to conceive on. I looked it up and I found it at newsfromrussia.com! I need to stop here in order to maintain a G rated blog

Posted by Bonnie under exercise, statistics, world

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Did you know the average surface temperature of the earth is around 60 degrees fahreheit? (15 celsius)

The circumference of the earth is about 24,900 miles around. That’s about 131,472,000 feet and would take you 88.66 days (2,128 hours) to run if you kept up the pace (11.7 mph) of the 2007 Boston Marathon winner!
And of course, you’d need to be able to walk on water too, as you’d have to cover some of the water that covers about 70% of the surface area of the earth.

Speaking of water, there are an estimated 326 million cubic miles of water in the rivers, atmosphere, oceans, groundwater, and other places on earth. Each cubic mile of water is an astonishing 1,000,000,000,000 (one trillion) gallons of water, making the total amount of water 326,000,000,000,000,000,000 gallons. While I was looking for the info on how many zeros this figure would contain I found this table of zeros to number names (the above figure is 326 quintillion). Why not check the table and find the highest number you know and then learn the next highest one? It’s not worth it to me to memorize the whole table up to a centillion (303 zeros), but it can’t be too hard to just memorize one more.

Posted by Bonnie under math, outdoors, running, statistics, world

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Check out this article about a 29 year old woman in China who
recently found she had 23 needles in her body, allegedly stuck
into her by her now dead grandparents, who were disappointed
by the arrival of another girl in the family.

Doctors suspect they wanted to kill her because her family preferred a son. Some of the needles were pushed into the fontanelle, the soft spot on the head all babies have before the bones knit. Ms Cuifen, now 29, was a second granddaughter, leaving the family no chance to produce a treasured boy child.

The Chinese government reckons it has prevented 400 million births,
abortion being a widespread method of family planning, and sometimes
infanticide. These killings have contributed to unbalancing the population
of men versus women, men outnumbering women by 37,000,000.

During the fiscal year 2005-2006, Planned Parenthood performed a record
264,943 abortions, making a profit of $55.8 million and using $305.3 millions
of our tax dollars.

For a little comparison, in the Revolutionary War we lost 25,324 of our troops.

In World War II, spanning several years, we lost 405,399.

What’s the difference between killing girls because they are considered a
nuisance to society, and killing babies in general because they’re a nuisance
to our lives?

Posted by Bonnie under health, statistics, world

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There are approximately 301,139,947 people in the United States of America. The national population in 1900 was around 76,094,000.

The largest American city is New York City, with about 8,168,338 people. I tried to find the stats on the smallest town, but the results seem inconclusive with many claims to the smallest town. The people at Yahoo pointed out there are some ghost towns - would those qualify as the smallest, having no residents at all?

An American woman has an average of 2-2.1 kids each, having dropped from 3.5 in the 1950s. 2.1 children per woman is considered the minimum for maintaining a population.

44% of women aged 15-44 are childless, with the highest percentage of childless women being made up of those with incomes over $100,000.

Read more stats on child/woman stats at this report from census.gov

Try to find out what the population of your own town or city is. Consider looking at older records as well to see what the current trend is.

Posted by Bonnie under health, statistics

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A few weeks ago someone from Red Cross called and asked if I wanted to donate blood again. I had been waiting for the super-local one that I can walk to, but I figured why not go to the one a few miles away! Thinking about my readers, I asked my sister if she would tagalong and take pictures. I thought it might be a good chance to show people who have never given blood before exactly what the process entails. To be eligible, you must be at least 17 or 16 years of age (depends on state), weigh at least 110 pounds, and meet a few other requirements.

Last time I went the lines were terrible even though I had an appointment. This time I made the appointment for the earliest slot they had and there was no backup at all. I arrived with my positive ID (required) and was given a sheet to read with information about donating blood. I was also given a short survey asking questions such as “How tall are you?” and “Are you pregnant?”
After I finished I was given a number and was told to wait in the waiting area they had set up. Due to scheduling ahead, as I said, the wait was minimal. Here I am, looking a bit overhappy that someone is going to stick me with a needle in a few minutes!

Next the nurse called me over and she took a sample of blood from my finger for an iron test, stuck a disposable thermometer under my tongue, took my pulse and blood pressure. After a short questioning, she told me to wait in a chair near the beds. There was no wait though, a nurse called me over almost before I could sit down. This nurse double checked my stats (as written on my report thingy that they printed out from their database, as I’ve dontated before) and asked me if I was allergic to iodine.

I relaved on the bed while she wiped my arm with iodine. Then she gave me a small white tube to hold and put a blood pressure cuff on my upper arm. She asked me to squeeze the tube and then she inserted the needle. It was practically painless - hardly more than a mosquito bite. She also scanned the barcodes on 5 or 6 small vials - blood to be tested for certain diseases.

      Now Now the actual blood donation was occuring, my blood draining to a small bag attached to the bed. The nurse instructed me to squeeze the tube every 5 seconds or so. Last time I was told this is only to ensure circulation remains satisfactory. I raised my head once to look and one of the nurses said I ought to keep it down. I assume the elevation might have made me lightheaded. I was still able to spy on the process though, by turning my head and looking down.

After the donation was finished another lady came over and asked me how I was feeling. She detached the bag, scanned the barcodes on the vials once more and started to fill them. I was surprised how fast they filled up and she explained that they have a little bit of vacuum. I didn’t just give blood, they sucked it out of me! She then removed the needle in my arm, took off the blood pressure cuff, put a piece of gauze where the needle had been, and asked me to raise my arm straight up and apply pressure to the gauze.

I did that for probably 2 minutes and then she took a look. It was still leaking, though only slightly, so she asked me to do it another minute. After this I was given a pink sheet of paper with call back info (in case I had questions, or discovered I was HIV positive), and sent to “the canteen.” The canteen consisted of a table with some bags of snacks and a guy behind the table giving out snacks, water (or juice) and free tee shirts.

The only thing left to do was compare nutritional value between Oreos and Chips Ahoy! I found, surprisingly enough, that Oreos no longer contain hydrogenation. The ingredient I found on the package most likely to be the filling was highly oleic canola oil. But back to blood donation!

I left feeling fine and the greatest pain from the whole experience was ripping off one side of the bandage to show my little brother the hole they took the blood out of. Talk about the senstivity of the nerves located near you hair roots!

Here is a list of interesting facts on donating blood from Blood Center: (you can read even more here!)

20 Quick Facts About Donating Blood

A person can donate blood every 56 days.

One donation of whole blood can help up to three different patients.

Every three seconds, someone in the U.S. needs a blood transfusion.

Over four million American lives are saved each year by blood transfusions.

Approximately 60 percent of the population is eligible to donate, but less than five percent of those able actually do so.

Over 30,000 pints of blood are used each day in the U.S.

An accident victim can use 50 units of blood and an organ transplant patient can use more that 100 units of blood.

One out of every ten hospital patients needs blood.

Nearly 300 units of blood must be collected each week to meet Scott & White’s needs.

Whole blood cannot be made synthetically; healthy people are the only source.

All blood types are needed; often the common blood types are the most frequently transfused.

The average adult body has between 10 and 12 pints of blood. After one pint is donated, the body replaces the fluid portion within 24 hours, the platelets within two days and the red blood cells within 56 days.

Red cells are usable for 42 days and platelets are only usable for five days.

One pint of blood is roughly the equivalent of one pint.

There are four main blood types: A, AB, B, and O.

AB is the universal recipient, and O negative is the universal donor.

The actual blood donation usually takes less than ten minutes.

A person cannot contract HIV/AIDS or any other infectious disease from donating blood.

A person could optimally donate up to six or seven times per year.

If you are able, please consider donating blood. It’s practically painless and all in all, it’s kind of fun. I even got a package of oreos out of the whole deal

Posted by Bonnie under health, statistics

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…I would have to enter my income in Global Rich List and find out just how rich I was. How poor are you? Would you rate yourself as in the low, middle, or high bracket of income? Put your income in here (nothing required but income, no email address, no name) and find out where you rate. You might be surprised.

According to the site,

Three billion people live on less than $2 per day while 1.3 billion get by on less than $1 per day. Seventy percent of those living on less than $1 per day are women.

Christian Aid is a Christian organization that supports native missionaries - you can support one for $30-$100 and 100% of that goes to support that missionary. You can also donate money for food, wells, buildings, children’s orphanages, etc, and unless you specify otherwise, 100% of those donations go to the need. They depend on God to supply their needs. Donations given specifically for administration costs provide for the staff.

So since I rank in the top 14% of the world, I guess I am a rich man after all. Um, make that rich woman.

Posted by Bonnie under statistics, world

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There are approximately 65,000  dairy farms in the US. That amounts to about 9,000,000 cows, Numbering less than 200 head at most farms, about 99 percent of the dairies in the US are famiy owned. Each milking cow produces 6-7 gallons of milk daily, the average number of gallons having risen about 59 percent from 1975-1995.

I got a chance to visit a small, family run dairy not too long ago and one of the owners let me help him milk. It’s a fairly simple process, but it takes a lot of time to milk 120 cows twice a day, plus look after the other duties of the farm. First the cows are let into milking stalls. I was surprised that the cows seemed to know (they had done it before, I’m sure!) just where to go, and moreover that they even seemed eager to come and be milked. I had originally thought that the cows full of milk felt uncomfortable and wanted to be milked for that reason but this article says that it’s been found not to be the case and that it’s more likely feed related.

Milking takes place in a place called a milking parlour. After the cows are positioned - business end toward the middle aisle - the cleaning of the teats begins. A bottle containing blue sanitizing fluid is applied to the cow’s four teats, left on for a minute or two and then dried off. Wiping it off minimizes traces of the chemicals in the finished milk. On a lot of farms in Europe and Canada, milking is now done but machine, but this article (Robot.com, 2006) says “Robotic milking systems are just beginning to show up on U.S. dairy farms, in part because strict federal and state guidelines must be met before the systems can be sold. ”

The milking vacuums are hung on wires that automatically come down as far as you pull them when the vacuum button is pressed. The small, silver tubular things you can see in the picture at right are placed up to one of the four teats. Each milker is applied and the milk starts flowing into piping that will go into a tank. On this farm the tank holds 2,000 gallons of milk. The milkers sense when the cow is done milking and releases the vacuum. The air controlled automated wires that hold the milkers now return to their starting position. The teats are again cleaned, the cows leave, and another batch comes in. The process continues until the last of the cows are finished. Then the milkers are pulled down and attached to tubing that will fill them up with water (and I assume, clean the whole system out).

That’s it, until the next morning’s milking (we milked in the late afternoon.) I’m not sure when that wakeup typically is but I know it’s early, and at this farm it’s around 4:30am.

According to Foodintol.com, 75 percent of people have some sort of sensitivity to dairy products.

Check out annual dairy consumption rates in US.

Posted by Bonnie under agriculture, statistics

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