Week of October 15: The Greatest Invention Ever

After months of impatiently waiting and counting down the days, Monday finally arrived... my annual deep dental cleaning appointment with my periodontist, Dr. Wiesen. Happy-happy, joy-joy! So while my dental hygienist scaled, scrapped and buffed my teeth and gum, I decided to enjoy this nirvana experience by humming to the song of Amboy Dukes and taking a Journey to the Center of the Mind. Shutting out the world of pain that I was in, I began to ponder about a question that I have often posed to my friends (usually during a long car ride to or from backpacking). What is THE greatest invention ever? I believe I have the definitive answer.

The usual responses I get are generally good ones.

• The steam engine: a little toy, known as aeolipile, invented by the Greeks in the 1st century AD. A good invention. But is it the greatest ever? Isn't the steam engine responsible for the industrial revolution and all of the death and destruction associated with it (although we can also argue that it has created a better society by replacing manual labor with industrial machines)?


• Electricity: from Benjamin Franklin to Thomas Edison to Nikola Tesla to Enron, the ability to produce and deliver electricity is at best, a great example of technological advancement/evolution and ingenuity. It's not really an "invention".


• The printing press? Television? Computers?

I sincerely respect all these responses and the people who believe them to be the greatest. I really do. But they are wrong. Anyone with half a brain will agree with me that the greatest invention ever is SOAP! That's right, CH3(CH2)16COONa! Did I just blow your mind? I did, didn't I? There is no denying it. If you have any doubts to the credibility of my definitive analysis, here is a simple test you can perform. Step 1: Go out and get your hands dirty... real dirty. Mud, grease, buffalo wing sauce, etc. Step 2: simply wash your hands with cold water. Wash them good. Pat dry. Still a little dirty? Step 3: wash hands again. This time in warm water. More dirt will come off. Pat dry. Pretty clean by now, right? But would you operate on a sick person or deliver a baby with those hands? That's what people who didn't believe in the wondrous magical power of soap used to do. Step 4: wash your hands again (warm water for best result). This time with soap, rubbing your hands into a lather for at least 20 seconds. Rinse. See all that gunk? Pat dry with a clean towel. Now you're ready for more buffalo wings!

Flu season is approaching. Washing your hands frequently with soap is one of the best ways to prevent yourself from catching a cold/flu and to avoid spreading it to others. This is my absurd way of telling you that Andrea and I had an uneventful week (for once) and to do my part in public service. And by the way, I actually do believe that soap is the greatest invention ever! No one has been able to make a convincing case for other inventions to bump soap off as #1 in my book. Please feel free to add your 2 cents with your comments. I'd be very interested to see what people think as the greatest invention ever.

Side Note

I'm also a big fan of Windex (and I consider it to be a subspecies of soap). Much like Gus Portokalos in the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding, I have found Windex to be very useful for other remedies besides cleaning dirty windows. Recently, I have discovered that Windex is awesome for killing bugs, especially mosquitoes (spiders and moths too). As many of you may already know, I hate mosquitoes and mosquitoes hate me... actually mosquitoes love me. I could be in the center of a circle of 50 naked people at the south pole and a mosquito would seek and bite me. We have bug screens on all our windows and the front door and somehow, mosquitoes would sneak-in to attack me at 2 AM in the morning, taunting me by buzzing my ear and leaving a trail of itchy swollen welts, while my wife sleeps sound asleep untouched right next to me. It was on one of these nights when I got even and took it to the mosquitoes. One spray of Windex (as we don't really believe in toxic pesticides... more harm than good) was all it took to immobilize a mosquito in mid air and send it into a free fall right onto the floor. The mosquito was still alive. It was just unable to fly as the magical Windex had rendered its wings useless for flight. At that point, I took huge pride and satisfaction in crushing the vile pest into a pulp. And yes, we do have the Costco 5 pack strategically placed individually throughout the house.

If you have other creative uses for Windex (who doesn't?), please share them with me by way of comments.

Week of October 8: Shed Update

Get Your Own! View Slideshow

We are almost done with the shed! The ribbon cutting ceremony is scheduled for the weekend of October 28th. I'm sure you'll see it on CNN or even SportsCenter. It will be good to have our weekends back and to get back in the loop.

Week of October 1: Uncle Dave and Aunt Marilyn

Uncle Dave and aunt Marilyn are semi retired and have a beautiful house (more like a castle) in Boqueron, Puerto Rico. They also have a farm in Omaha, Nebraska, that they visit once or twice a year. This year, Dave and Marilyn decided to start a road trip west from Omaha to San Diego. Along the way, they stopped over at the Grand Teton, Yellowstone, Glacier National Park, Jackson Hole, Banff, Vancouver, San Juan Islands and of course Oakland, CA. Andrea and I were delighted to have Dave and Marilyn stay with us for a few days.

On Saturday, drove up to Healdsburg to rendez-vous with Dave and Marilyn as they made their way down from Oregon. We finally met up with them around lunch at Willi's Seafood and Raw Bar. After warm heartfelt hello's, we got down to business and ordered lots of food and drinks. Willi's Warm Maine Lobster Roll was amazing! Andrea also tried her first oysters ever! She actually ate and enjoyed a couple of Kumamoto Oysters. This is not good news for me. Over the years, Andrea and I have reached a certain level of understanding and expectations. She eats her tomatoes with sugar and I eat mine with salt and pepper. She picks and orders the wines at restaurants and I finish them. She shucks the oysters and I devour them. Now I will have to share MY oysters! Great Zeus... why??!!

"Down the hatch!"

After lunch, we headed south to Sonoma for wine tasting. We first stopped at one of our favorite wineries, Matanzas Creek. As always, we really enjoyed all of Matanzas' wines. Our favorite was the 2005 Sauvignon Blanc. We then visited Wellington Vineyards where we tasted their many wines as well as their signature Ports. Very delicious. Finally, we stopped over at Loxton Cellars, which is a relatively new winery making some great Syrahs and Zinfandels.



Andrea and I also introduced Dave and Marilyn to Dim Sum. Andrea and I usually go to Yank Sing (we once set across from Nicholas Cage and his then newly wed wife Alice Kim there) in San Francisco for our Dim Sum fix. However, we decided to stay local and checked out the Hong Kong East Ocean Restaurant ("HKEOR"). To our surprise, the HKEOR was not only delicious but had a great view of the San Francisco Bay.

After spending a couple of days with us, Dave and Marilyn were off to San Diego. Andrea, Kodi and I were sad to say good-bye. But since we have an open invitation to visit Dave and Marilyn in Boqueron, Dave and Marilyn can expect to see us knocking at their gate real soon.

Week of September 17 and 24: Ford Truck Man

Move over Toby Keith, there is a new Ford Truck Man in town! You can eat the exhaust from my big block 390 engine as I roll my rig into the gas station for my $100 fill up. That's right... I ain't got no boundaries, I don't compromise... I rather walk ten miles, then be down on my luck, then ride around the block in any other pick up truck.

Get Your Own! View Slideshow

For over 2 years now, Andrea and I have been getting by with just one car, the Audi A4 Avant. For the most part, it has worked out great. We both work down in Redwood City (about 10 minutes apart), so it has been very easy and enjoyable to commute together to work everyday. I call this our "HPH"... Hour of Pure Heaven (each way). But there has been times when we could have really used another car. And lately, with doing a lot of home improvement projects ourselves, we have been borrowing our friend's pickup truck for many Home Depot runs. We looked into buying a new car but it didn't seem quite cost effective to shell out a lot of dough for a car that will be driven about 3,000 miles a year. So we started looking around for a used pickup truck. After making our mind up to search solely for an older "classic", we found several pickups on Craigslist that peaked our interest. I was actually surprised to find so may trucks from the late 60s and early 70s still running around. After test driving a couple of junkers, we found the F-250 in Roseville and decided to make the hour-and-a-half drive up north to check it out (this was on Saturday, 9/23). I liked the fact that the truck was kept in original "stock" condition. I think the radio and the steering wheel are the only noticeablele aftermarket parts on the truck. Andrea on the other hand, loved the "Tiffany" blue color. After the test drive, we both agreed that this beauty was it. Steven was the owner of the truck. He's a really nice retired guy who fixed up cars for a hobby. He had over 20 cars that he was working on including a beautiful Ford Ranchero (early 60 model) and a 67 Ford F100 pickup.

We signed all the paper work and purchased the truck from Steven. However, since the truck was registered as non-operative, we were not able to "legally" drive it home. Steven offered go into the DMV during the week and have it re-registered and we could pick it up after it was street legal. We agreed to this plan and returned the following week (9/30) and drove it home. It drove very nicely and had lots of power. There are a few things I'm planning to work on during the winter to make the truck nicer... after all, I AM a Ford Truck Man!