I came across this contest today and thought it was pretty funny as well as a good marketing ploy.  Roto-Rooter is has come up with a book of funny/spooky bathroom stories and capitalizing on the fact that two of their own employees are hosts of the popular show Ghost Hunters.

• Enter the contest

Roto-Rooter teamed up with its army of plumbers, including real-life Roto-Rooter men, Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson of TV’s Ghost Hunters®, to assemble a funny yet frightening vignette-style bathroom reader about plumbing horrors and unexpected things that go wrong in America’s bathrooms.

Chilling Tales from the Porcelain Seat includes strange but true tales from the general public and the plumbers who have seen it all and lived to tell about it! 100 pages of fun stories and photos to enjoy on your throne.

Rather than try and skimp and save at every turn, wouldn’t they be better off focusing on PLEASING the customer?! Apparently the only airline that gets what customers want (and gives it to them), is Virgin.

I ran into this in Costa Rica once.  I was traveling through several of the cities and no matter where I went I had to pay to use the restroom. Luckily I had enough cash to pay!

So the question is…

What happens if your on the plane and you don’t have any cash, or a credit card on you, and you have to go? 

Yesterday was the birthday of Samuel Morse, the inventor of Morse code. Google sent out a message to everyone that it is his birthday. The logo is getting a lot of buzz and people are asking for more information about it. Here is a picture of the logo: The logo is slightly off, in terms of Morse code which has spurred many comments at the Search Engine Roundtable. Some folks are a little upset it is not in a single line. However, it does look interesting this way and I think that it is this way to keep the diminsions of the image consistant with all the other themes that Google does. Google did do a special logo for Louise Braille a few years ago on January 4, 2006.

It was a sunny day, not a cloud in the sky, when Hal Whiting, KI2U, Todd Kluxdal, Kluxdal’s father and Whiting’s two sons decided to go out to the Poverty Mountain area in Arizona to search for airplane crash sites. Whiting, who lives in St George, Utah, and Kluxdal, who lives in Mesquite, Nevada, took two vehicles that day. According to Whiting, they always take two vehicles, just in case a problem pops up: “We always have two spare tires, extra gasoline and a tow rope. We take enough food and supplies to stay two or three days.” In addition to the extra equipment, Whiting took the one thing he never goes without — his ham radio.

“It was a bit after lunch, about 73 miles into our trip,” Whiting told the ARRL, “when we were flagged down by a man wanting to know if we had a satellite phone, since he couldn’t get coverage on his cell phone.” Whiting didn’t have a satellite phone, but he asked the man if this was an emergency. Whiting said that the man told him that one of his friends had been injured when her ATV rolled on top of her. “I told him I could call for help on my ham radio,” he said. The injured woman was knocked unconscious by the fall, but had regained consciousness and was speaking coherently, but was in pain.

“I picked up my mic and put out a call on the 146.910 repeater, one of four repeaters run by Dean Cox, NR7K,” Whiting said. “I called for assistance a couple of times when Mac Magee, N6LRG, of the Cane Beds area in Arizona, answered.”

“Mac lives about 50 miles away from the accident site” Whiting said. “It’s funny — it’s usually Washington County hams who are on the repeaters, since that’s the direction they’re pointed in. But Mac lives in Mohave County. And the accident happened in Mohave County. We were lucky, since if the call was answered by a ham in Washington County, there would have been a delay in them getting the info to the proper authorities in Mohave County, but with Mac answering, all our information went right to the proper place.”

That morning, Magee told the ARRL that he came into my shack “and for some reason, turned on the 2 meter rig and it happened to be on the 146.910 repeater. I usually have a problem with the repeater ‘hearing’ me, so I rarely use it. About 11:20 Arizona time, I heard someone call and say they had emergency traffic and needed help. I fully expected a bevy of hams to answer the call, since so many are in range of that machine, but after his second call, and no answer, I took it.”

Magee said that the calling station had been flagged down by another motorist. “He told me there had been an accident in the vicinity of Poverty Mountain,” he said. “I really had no idea where that was, but I began to write down details. As soon as I had basic info, I called 911. The Mohave County Sheriff Office answered; I explained who I was and what the call was about.”

The dispatcher asked Magee for the coordinates to the site, and Magee relayed the request to Whiting. “I looked at my GPS and gave Mac my coordinates, but he said the dispatcher wanted the coordinates from the accident site,” Whiting said. “So I got in my 4-wheel drive and drove down the ridge to the site, about 5600 feet above sea level, and got the coordinates. I had to drive back to the ridge, another 1000 feet up, to call Mac back, because I couldn’t get a signal down there.”

Whiting told the ARRL that in addition to his ham radio, he also carries a set of FRS radios. “I gave one of the FRS radios to Todd and he drove his Jeep down the ridge to the accident site,” he said. “I kept the other one and Todd was able to relay me information about the injured woman’s condition and I was able to relay that information to Mac who in turn relayed it to the 911 dispatcher. Mac put the mic right up to the phone so the dispatcher could hear exactly what was going on.”

Magee said the 911 dispatcher requested more information: “While Hal was replying, I held the phone up to my radio speaker. When he finished with the details, I asked them if they copied that. The dispatcher said he did, and they held me on the line. Hal and I talked a while as he gave more data. When the dispatcher returned, they said a chopper was being dispatched from Phoenix! Well, we finished that call after they had the actual accident site GPS coordinates that Hal had passed on.”

With emergency help on the way, Kluxdal returned to the ridge and he and Whiting and his group went on their way to go check out an airplane crash site, the original intent of their trip. “The family members told us to go on and get on with our trip, so we did, after making sure they were all okay,” Whiting said. “So we left to go to the crash site, about 3-4 miles away. As we were getting ready to return, we saw the helicopter overhead, taking the injured woman to the hospital in Las Vegas. We returned to the top of the ridge and a sheriff’s deputy was there and he told us that our GPS coordinates were off, but only by 20 feet! He said that the helicopter crew was real happy that they were so on-target.”

Whiting said they were glad to have been able to help. “This is a remote area,” he said. “There’s only one way in, one way out with no shortcuts to get in and out. There are only dirt roads, and it can get very muddy when it rains a lot. I was out that way two weeks ago and got stuck in the mud there, but it was all dry this past weekend.”

Whiting said he learned a few things after this trip: “I am glad I had my radio equipment with me, and I am glad there was someone listening on the repeater to take the emergency call. Having the spare FRS radios created an efficient means for relay with a non-ham person, and having the GPS equipment provided a very effective means for the helicopter rescue team to locate the accident, since they did not want the road designation information but the exact patient coordinates. It would have been useless to have my equipment if there had not been someone listening, proving there is a good reason to keep your radios with you and in good operating condition.”

Whiting, who was first licensed in 1976, is the ARES® Assistant Emergency Coordinator for Washington County. A CAD Manager and Aerial Photographer for Bulloch Brothers in Mesquite, Nevada (he and Kluxdal are co-workers), he is currently teaching an Amateur Radio licensing class to 13 prospective hams at the Dixie Regional Medical Center in St George.

Magee said that before this incident he had never been involved in an actual emergency. “I have established emergency communications networks, in particular for the LDS Church in Newbury Park, California, where I was the Stake Emergency Communications Coordinator.” He told the ARRL. “Our communications group won the first worldwide test of the system back in the late 1980s. This is like ARRL Field Day, but involved mostly LDS members and facilities, then under the name of Mercury Amateur Radio Association (MARA). I feel very pleased in knowing that I had the opportunity to serve in this rescue incident and that every penny I spent on my system, radio and antenna was certainly worth it. In these days of extensive cell phone service and coverage, isn’t it satisfying to know that ham radio can still be of use for public service?”

Berea joins 133 other communities worldwide that have been recognized by the Transition Network founded in the United Kingdom, for their accomplishments in working to achieve a positive future for their community.

Read more:

http://sustainableberea.org

“The U.S. space surveillance network detected a large number of debris from both objects,” NASA’s Nicholas Johnson says. For now, the International Space Station appears to be okay. But it’s not yet clear whether that debris “poses a risk to any other military or civilian satellites,” the website adds.

According to NASA, of the 6,000 satellites sent into orbit since 1957, about 3,000 remain in operation.

As if things are not bad enough…

Peanut butter, contaminated by salmonella, was sent to Kentucky after an apparent communication breakdown among federal officials. The peanut butter was sent to help feed hundreds of thousands of people left without power at the height of last week’s storm.

The company that packaged the meals, Red Cloud Foods Inc., sent a memo dated Jan. 19 to the arm of the Department of Defense responsible for getting them to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. But FEMA said it didn’t learn of the recall until Wednesday, more than two weeks later.

The kits, which contained entrees, cookies, chips and sometimes peanut butter packets, were assembled in September for relief efforts after Hurricane Ike, said Bob Harrison, chairman of South Elgin, Ill.-based Red Cloud Foods Inc.

Read more…

Here is an video of the aftermath:

Under the agreement, Kentucky Utilities, a unit of E.ON US, will cut emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides at its E. W. Brown Generating Station in Mercer County, Kentucky, by more than 31,000 tons per year.

The company will also install controls to reduce particulate matter emissions by approximately 1,000 tons per year.

Source: PlaneTark.org

Motoya Nakamura / The OregonianPersonal trainer DeAnna Bellamy (left) and owner Adam Boesel pedal exercise bikes that feed batteries at soon-to-open Green Microgym.

People will do more than burn energy at a gym set to open Sept. 1 on Northeast Alberta Street. They’ll also create it.

At the Green Microgym, human energy will be harnessed from fitness bikes and converted to electricity.

Owner Adam Boesel hopes the gym eventually will run solely on the energy it generates. Boesel, 37, says the gym will be the first of its kind in the U.S. and a good fit in eco-conscious Portland.

Globally, it will join Hong Kong’s California Fitness gym, where exercisers power lights and batteries, and London nightspot Club Surya, where a dance floor converts movement into energy.

Dave Erwin, an environmental studies professor at Portland State University, says that as energy prices soar, more people are concerned about how they affect the environment. People “are trying to turn an energy shortage into an asset,” he says. “It’s a fascinating concept.”

Like other fitness centers, the 2,800-square-foot Green Microgym will have treadmills, bikes and elliptical trainers. But the treadmills, with energy-efficient motors, will use 30 percent less power than normal machines.

And four spin bikes — stationary bikes that don’t use electricity — will produce 200 to 600 watts of energy an hour, says Mike Taggett of Texas, who developed them. Four or five other spin bikes in the gym will be attached to generators Boesel developed. All will feed a battery bank that can be tapped for the gym’s electricity needs, though the power generated will be modest at first.

Other green features? A yoga room with cork flooring and local artwork. Solar-panel awnings. Energy-efficient ceiling fans. And no showers, to save on water-heating costs.

Boesel, a former grade-school teacher, became a personal trainer four years ago out of a desire to see more immediate results and live a healthy lifestyle. Now, he says, “I get rewarded for how hard I work and for how smart I work.”

Motoya Nakamura / The OregonianHuman energy will be harnessed from fitness bikes at Green Microgym and converted to electricity.

For Alberta-area residents, the gym’s environmental friendliness is a definite draw, but they’re more excited about it being in the neighborhood.

“For me, it’s like, wow, there’s a gym at the end of my street,” says Jackie Yerby, a new member. She calls it a “no-excuses gym” because distance won’t be a factor in whether she works out.

DeAnna Bellamy, a Green Microgym personal trainer who just moved to Portland from Chicago, says the facility is “an evolution of gyms.”

“You go to a gym to get healthy. If you can make the Earth healthy as well, you’re kind of killing two birds with one stone.”

– Nicole Santa Cruz; nicolesantacruz@news.oregonian.com